


Change Is Only The Beginning

by ivorygates



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: F/M, Girl!Daniel, Stargate the Movie AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-22
Updated: 2012-12-22
Packaged: 2017-11-21 23:41:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 78,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/603345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivorygates/pseuds/ivorygates
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The One Where: Catherine Langford hired the wrong archaeologist for Project Giza, Dani Jackson joins a lesbian rock band, Jack isn't quite sure what he wants, and Gary Meyers gets a makeover.</p>
<p>AKA: Ivory Writes A Harlequin Romance...</p>
<p>Warning: incipient babies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Change Is Only The Beginning

A year ago O'Neill was yanked out of retirement on the assumption that -- after fifteen years of empty promises -- Catherine Langford was finally about to get Project Giza off and running, having pulled an unauthorized civilian specialist out of her ... hat ... to translate the Coverstone. Only Dr. Simon Gardner's been a real disappointment, they're no closer to translating the Coverstone than before, and the Pentagon is getting twitchy. They want either a superweapon -- now -- or someplace else to spend their money.

It's Gardner's fiancée, Fordman, who throws them a bone. She gets drunk one weekend and tells Langford -- Langford holds tea parties for her staff, where apparently more than tea is served -- that if they really want to crack the Coverstone, they need Gardner's last girlfriend. The real reason Gardner dumped her was that the woman was apparently smarter than he was. Also crazy.

O'Neill hears about the weekend backchannel and digs up more information. Not from the obvious source, since Langford, not having learned her lesson with Gardner, has already flown off to New York in search of her latest geek Holy Grail. What he discovers is less than encouraging.

Simon Gardner's 'last girlfriend' is one Dr. Danielle Jackson, currently 27 years of age. Current address, New York City.

_Twenty-seven?_

She has four PhDs. She speaks thirty-six languages. She doesn't -- apparently -- have a job.

The last place she _did_ have a job was at the Oriental Institute in Chicago -- with Gardner. He phones there, and reaches a David Jordan. Jordan agrees that Dr. Jackson is brilliant, gifted, talented -- and iconoclastic, unorthodox, and uncompromising.

O'Neill is in the military. He can read between the lines. Dr. Jackson is smart, stubborn, and crazy as a bedbug.

Jordan's worried about her. Apparently she had a big fight with her then-boyfriend, Gardner, a little over a year and a half ago. Jordan doesn't know what the fight was about. He tried to find her another job, but she wasn't having any. She left Chicago and dropped out of sight. Hasn't been in touch since.

#

Three days later, Langford's in O'Neill's office. Waving papers at him and doing her usual imitation of an irritated stork. Langford's absolutely convinced that Jackson can translate the Coverstone. Langford tracked her down in New York. Showed her photographs. Doesn't the damned woman understand the meaning of the word 'Classified'?

Jackson apparently looked at the translation that Gardner and Meyers have done of the hieroglyphs on the stone and laughed for five minutes. Then pulled a Sharpie out of her backpack and corrected it in about two seconds.

And then refused to come.

"I have to have this woman, Colonel O'Neill. She could be the key to the success of the whole project."

He stares down at the words scrawled across the translation. _'A million years into the sky is Ra, Sun God. Sealed and buried for all time is his Stargate.'_

"And just how am I supposed to arrange that, Dr. Langford?"

"I don't know, Colonel O'Neill. Perhaps if you were as charming to her as you are to me, she might agree," Langford says, managing to wrap smug and supercilious and pleading all up into two little sentences and a frown. O'Neill simply glares.

#

In the last year and a half Dani's lost fifteen pounds, gotten her ears and her navel pierced, cut her hair (short) and dyed it blonde, and gotten a tattoo at the base of her spine. A solar scarab -- a _khepri_ \-- with a sun disc.

It's odd to think that -- out of all the skills she's so painstakingly acquired in life -- the ones she'd mastered before the age of eight serve her best now. These days she plays keyboard in a lesbian (or at least all-female) rock band. She doubts they're very good. But they're also Croatian, and the number of Croat-speaking female keyboardists with good singing voices, even in New York, is limited.

She's tired of lies. Tired of hypocrisy. Tired of playing the _academic game._

By now she's lost everything. Her reputation. Her grants. Her academic standing. Her parents' books and artifacts and furniture (she managed, at least, to sell those before the storage company did). It's oddly liberating to be no one and have nothing.

She has the money from the band's gigs. She does translation work -- she has flyers up all over the Lower West Side. She shares a shabby apartment in an appalling part of town with a collection of ... kids ... a few years younger than she is. Students. Only they're just starting their lives. And hers is over.

She realized, after Simon, that she couldn't face his future. Couldn't face David's future. Couldn't fight any more. Nobody was ever going to believe her. She barely believed herself.

Earth was settled -- or colonized -- or _something_ \-- by aliens from space. They founded the Egyptian civilization. Then they vanished.

No, nobody was ever going to believe that.

Aliens had left footprints all over Earth's history. In practically every culture. She couldn't prove it. Nick had gone crazy trying. She'd been so careful not to follow in his footsteps. They'd called her 'Dani von Daniken' anyway.

So she could lie -- repudiate everything she believed -- grovel to the academic establishment and watch them laugh at her behind her back for the rest of her life. She could try to prove something she already knew she couldn't ever prove, because even with proof, the academic establishment would never change their minds. Or she could leave.

So she'd left. It was the only solution, and it still felt like a failure. She wished she could lie. She _did._

Last week a woman named Catherine Langford tracked her down. She'd said she wanted some translation work done, so Dani had gone to meet her at a coffee shop near St. Mark's Place. They'd ordered coffee and chatted in German. Then Catherine had admitted that she was from a project that had hired Simon Gardner. That his fiancée, Marion Fordman, had suggested that Dr. Jackson might be able to help them.

She'd nearly gotten up to leave, then. But Catherine had opened her portfolio and taken out some photographs. They were interesting.

Then Catherine had taken out some drawings of hieroglyphics with a totally incorrect translation written beneath them in large block letters. Dani had recognized Simon's work at once, and she'd laughed. Then she'd corrected it. Catherine had assumed she would come to finish what she'd started. When she'd had refused, Catherine had practically begged her. Told her they'd pay.

Dani's nearly broke. Her rent is due. But she's damned if she's going within a thousand miles of Simon Gardner ever again. Or to anyplace else where anyone expects her to _play the game._

#

O'Neill shows the pages to General West, because if he doesn't, Langford will, and part of his job is to keep the geeks away from the brass. To his disgust, West agrees with Langford: they need Dr. Jackson on Project Giza, and O'Neill is sent to talk to her (to bring her back, the General means, but if he wants her kidnapped he'll have to take it up with the CIA). O'Neill has a list of places she could be and a photograph the Oriental Institute sent. The description given by Langford doesn't match it at all. The photo is of a plump brown-haired girl in a bulky turtleneck sweater and glasses. Langford described a skinny blonde in a ripped black t-shirt. Too bad Langford didn't get a picture.

So it's off to New York, and Kawalsky can throw out the memos on his desk for a few days while O'Neill takes a short government-paid vacation. After he checks into his Manhattan hotel room, O'Neill tries Dr. Jackson's apartment. Dr. Jackson isn't there. His uniform gets him a lot of hostility and non-compliance from a bunch of liberal arts college types. But the door's open, and there's a poster on the wall for a band named _Liberation_ , and according to the dossier they've managed to put together, Dr. Jackson is currently playing keyboard in _Liberation._ A call back to Colorado gets him the information on where the band will be playing tonight (he doesn't like Major Samuels, and Samuels doesn't like him, so it's a high point of any day when O'Neill can make him do one of the many things Samuels feels is beneath him). He looks around the area in daylight and decides that this particular recon will best be accomplished in mufti, although he'll still stick out like a sore thumb.

The things he does for his country.

#

_Oh god I am so ripped._

Magda was passing a joint around in the dressing room before they went on, and even though Dani didn't have any of it, the second-hand smoke is enough to make her feel as if she isn't quite touching the ground. That, and the triple dose of antihistamines she has to take to get through the night, because _Perestroika_ is a bar, and bars are filled with smoke. Not just tobacco smoke. Everyone from the Eastern Bloc smokes as if smoking were a sacrament, and _Perestroika_ is the premiere gathering place in New York for Eastern Bloc émigré gays and lesbians.

_Liberation_ is popular here.

She drinks beer to keep her throat clear for singing. The bottles are lined up on the top of the keyboard. There will be half a dozen -- or more -- by the end of the night.

#

_That's_ a woman with four PhD's? _That's_ Dr. Jackson?

Dyed blonde. Hair gelled out in spikes. A couple of earrings in each ear. Tiny little tank top, so he can see that her navel's pierced, too. Baggy black pants and combat boots. Her skin glistens with sweat. No glasses. Her eyes are completely ringed in black. She looks like Ferretti's teenaged daughter.

O'Neill's already fended off four passes by the time he's finished his second beer. The bartender would like to throw him out -- he looks too much like a cop. But O'Neill isn't bothering anybody, or making trouble, and he's paying promptly for his drinks. Dr. Jackson's up on the stage, howling away in what sounds like Russian and banging away on a standing keyboard. He wishes to hell he'd brought earplugs.

And then she stops singing and concentrates on her playing -- apparently they've reached a musical bridge across musician's hell -- and for just a few bars, the brittle mathematics of a Scarlatti harpsichord sonata rises above the clamor of the guitars and drum. She grins, as if she's managed to get away with something.

And he wonders why the hell she's here.

#

After long enough that O'Neill wonders if he might be in danger of suffering permanent hearing loss, the band finally, mercifully, stops playing. And he realizes it's time to make his move.

When she steps off the stage, he moves to intercept her.

#

_< "Sweetheart, it's the policeman. The one who's been watching you all night."> _

Magda touches Dani's arm warningly, turning her in the direction of the bar. She hands Magda beer in her hand and fumbles in the pocket of her parachute pants for her glasses in their protective case. She doesn't bother to wear them on-stage -- she doesn't need to be able to see, there -- and they sort of spoil the whole Goth Chick image. She really ought to get new frames, but glasses are expensive.

_< "It's okay, Mag. Go on. My conscience is clear."> _

Magda moves off, looking worried. But the habits of a lifetime -- always run from authority -- hold firm. Dani fumbles her glasses into place just as he gets there.

Tall. Fortyish. _Very_ straight -- or at least straight-arrow, which means he can't be a cop, since the NYPD wouldn't send a cop down here who didn't look like he belonged.

_< "What do you want?"> _ she asks in Croat.

_< "Can I buy you a drink?"> _ he asks in badly-accented -- but understandable -- Russian.

"I don't drink with men," she answers in English. Not at the gay bar where she works, anyway.

"I need to talk to you, and I'd rather not listen to any more of that. Although the Scarlatti was nice."

She looks around. Magda, Kolya, Lara, and Milla are clustered together at the back, looking worried. Patrice behind the bar isn't looking any too happy either. She sighs. Wonders what they'd do -- what he'd do -- if she just kissed him.

Ripped and reckless.

"You got a name?"

"Jack."

"Okay ... Jack. Four blocks from here, down by the river, there's an all-night diner. We close here about two. If you can find it, and I'm there, you can talk to me then."

"Or I could stay," he counters.

"Or Patrice and Ivor could throw you out." Ivor is _Perestroika's_ bouncer. He's into bodybuilding.

Jack smiles. It doesn't reach his eyes. Dani wonders suddenly if she should talk to him at all. But the diner is safe, and it will be full of people even at 2:30 in the morning. You can find a cab right there at any hour, because all the cabbies eat there. She can take a cab home after she talks to this guy.

"I'll see you there," he says.

#

He locates the diner, then finds a quiet bar and settles down to kill time until closing. He's good at killing things. Enemies. Marriages.

Sons.

Since Charlie died he drinks a little too much. More than a little. The desk job isn't helping. He'd been reactivated on the implicit promise of action. Something dangerous. One of those death or glory -- or to be more accurate, death _and_ glory -- missions where the brass throws you in the hopper with no clear objective and absolutely no idea of how they're going to get you out.

He'd used to care about getting out. Getting back. This time, having the prospect of a Grade-A Polish Fire Drill snatched away from him by the incompetence of Langford's idiot schoolchildren just irritated him. He would have welcomed the chance to finish things once and for all rather than just ... rusting. It's what drove Sara away, in the end. She got tired of waiting for him.

He's tired of waiting, too.

He doesn't know whether Jackson's a fruitcake or not yet, though by now he's pretty sure she's a flake. What he _is_ sure of is that short of drugging her, she won't come back with him.

Fine.

He'll say his piece and go home, and put in his papers again. Retire once and for all. And then...

Something.

Jackson's got a tattoo on her back, right down at the bottom. He saw it in the bar when she turned and walked away. Couldn't see all of it. He wonders what it is.

A real flake.

#

_Jack_ looks a little surprised to see her show up. To be frank, Dani's a little surprised she showed up, too. But she's... Bored?

No.

_Numb._

She'd like to feel something.

He's picked a booth at the back. The counterman's from Turkey, the night cook is Armenian. She greets them both in their native languages as she walks in, chats for a moment (she's a regular here; they all know her). Now that she's out of the bar, she can smell herself, a reek of smoke and beer. She'd like to shower when she goes home, but showering will have to wait; the plumbing at the apartment is noisy and she has an agreement with her roommates: no showers before six. She places her order (food is often a luxury, but she wants something to cut the alcohol) and goes to sit down.

"So talk," she says.

"Not going to waste my time. You're going to say 'no,'" he answers.

She blinks. Pulls out her glasses and puts them on again, as if that will make what he's said make more sense. Now that she's this close to him, she can smell the Scotch. Cigarettes, too, though that may be from the bar. He wasn't drinking Scotch at _Perestroika._ He's been someplace else since, obviously.

"You came to talk to me. And now you're not going to. Because whatever you were going to say, I'm going to turn down," Dani says carefully.

"You turned down Langford."

He's from Catherine Langford. "And she sent you?"

"No."

"Mister, one of us--"

"Colonel." He smiles at her again, that same faint cool smile that doesn't reach his eyes, and, well, at least this is ... interesting. In a sort of scary way. At least it's something to feel.

There haven't been any men since Simon (or women either). She hasn't felt the least urge for sex, let alone romance. Before Simon it was mostly experimental flings and one-night stands. With Simon she'd been sure it was love. She wonders now if it ever was, or if she only wanted it to be. And she realizes that -- just once, sometime -- she'd like to be the one who walks away instead of always being the one who's left behind. And -- it's crazy -- but she wants to make Jack really _look_ at her. 

Ripped. Reckless.

"Colonel?" she asks.

"Colonel Jack O'Neill, United States Air Force."

"Why?"

"What?"

"The Air Force."

"I'd always liked flying."

Either he's drunker than he looks or he's intentionally misunderstanding her.

"Not a lot to do with Ancient Egypt," she points out. He doesn't answer that one.

Her coffee comes. She has them pour some for the Colonel too. He looks like he could use it.

More silence. He drinks coffee. Her cheeseburger comes. She starts working her way through it.

Jack has a gift for silence. He seems to be perfectly content to sit and watch her eat. Odd, too, that she has no idea what's going through his mind. Most people give themselves away -- their eyes, their hands. They talk as loudly with their bodies as with their voices. It's one of the things that helps her pick up a new language so quickly; the non-verbal communication. People really _want_ to communicate. It's genetic. But Jack is giving her nothing to go on. Very odd.

Interesting.

Didn't he come here to talk to her? He said he did.

"Oh, god, humor me," she finally says. "You work for the Air Force, and Catherine -- Langford -- didn't send you, but you're here. And it's something to do with the pictures she showed me, so why don't we pretend you don't think you know what I'm going to say?"

"Sure," he says. That smile again, just for an instant. She'd like to see a real one, she thinks. She wonders if he ever really smiles. "I'm supposed to tell you that we want you to come finish the translation. Because apparently you're the only person on Earth who can. Langford thought Gardner could do it. He couldn't. Gardner's girlfriend thinks you can."

_"Marion?"_ Dani says in disbelief, setting down a handful of French fries. " _Marion_ recommended me?"

"You know her." It isn't a question.

"We met."

"Before Gardner dumped you and you ran off."

She starts to get to her feet, but the smug look on Jack's face stops her. She sits back down. "Before I discovered I wasn't suited for a career in Academia."

"A little late to figure that out. Four PhDs." Another non-question.

"Yeah, well, after the first one it's downhill all the way."

"Dr. Jordan says you're brilliant and unorthodox."

Someone's been checking up on her. "David was always very kind."

"Ms. Fordham says you're crazy."

_Bitch._ "Which is why she recommended me. Look, I need more information about just what it is you're asking me to do."

"Translate, Doctor. And until you sign a lot of very official papers, that's all you're going to know."

"All right! Dammit, where the hell are they? I'll sign them," she says irritably.

"Back at my hotel."

One of the cab drivers is getting ready to leave as they are. Jack gives him the address. A hotel in Midtown. She chats with the driver in Farsi as they drive. He's delighted she speaks his language, and as a result the trip is quick.

#

Dr. Jackson looks older under the harsh lights of the diner than she did back at the bar. Cheap black leather jacket and 'go-to-hell' attitude, but she can't hide the flinch when he mentions Gardner and Fordham. He's gotten farther than Langford has, and O'Neill's not sure whether he's pleased about that or not. He wonders just what Jordan didn't tell him, and if it's going to be important.

She spends the whole trip uptown making polite conversation with the cab driver in a language he recognizes all-too-well. So far he's heard her speak four languages fluently. She could be doing better for herself if she wanted to.

They reach the hotel.

#

Jack slides the keycard through the door, and Dani walks inside.

Two enormous beds. The one by the window has a suitcase and a briefcase laid out on it. There's a bottle on the table by the window. Scotch. The room smells faintly of cigarettes.

"You said you'd buy me a drink," she says, heading for the bathroom. Her skin itches.

She blinks at herself in the white glare reflected in the mirror and slides off her jacket, dropping it to the floor. There are enough towels here to start your own bed and bath store. She fills the sink with warm water and sluices down one of the hand towels. Takes off her glasses, considers the matter, and peels off her tank-top as well. Scrubs her face, and her hair, and her torso, until she's almost clean and has gone through every hand towel and washcloth he has. She leaves them in the bathtub. She doesn't dare touch the soap the hotel provides. The wrappers say 'Luxury Scented' -- which means it will give her a screaming headache. When she's done, she puts the tank top and her glasses back on, picks up her jacket, and goes out.

#

Apparently the first thing Dr. Jackson does when she goes to a strange man's hotel room is take a bath. But she looks a lot better without the god-awful punk makeup, and she's washed that garbage out of her hair, too. Her hair's lying flat and wet against her skull. She looks a little more like the girl in the photograph. He's gotten out the papers for her to sign. Poured her a drink. She sits down at the table and starts to read, absently sipping the Scotch.

"This isn't a contract," she says after a moment. Employment contract, he supposes she must mean.

"No. Langford wasn't supposed to show you those photos. You have to sign this."

"It says I can be arrested and imprisoned if I talk about them."

"That's right."

"On ... 'grounds of national security?'"

"That's what it says."

"They were photographs of an Egyptian coverstone." She sounds indignant.

"Are you going to sign it?"

She keeps reading. Gets to the end.

"Are you going to talk to me if I sign it?"

"Just sign it, Dr. Jackson." He holds out a pen. 

She scribbles her signature irritably on four copies. Reaches for her drink again. "Tell me."

He takes the copies and tucks them away in his briefcase. Looks at her for a long moment. They have her now, even if she doesn't know it. They can arrest her and bring her to the Mountain by force if they have to. All they have to do is say that she violated -- or might violate -- the agreement she just signed. 

He'd rather not let her know that.

So there's really no harm in telling her more. He has a certain latitude. "It was dug up in Egypt in 1928. Under it was another object, a flat ring about thirty feet in diameter, made of an unknown material. The ring is inscribed with the same symbols that are on the center of the Coverstone. Both the Coverstone and the ring have been carbon-dated to somewhere around ten thousand years old."

"Ten...?" Her voice breaks, and O'Neill realizes, with faint disbelief, that Dr. Jackson is about to cry.

She doesn't, though. She pushes her glasses up and rubs at her eyes, breathing hard. "Egyptian. It is obviously not possible for such an artifact to be ten thousand years old," she says, eyes closed. She sounds like she's reciting a lesson that's been beaten into her. It surprises him that he either notices or cares. He hasn't done a lot of either in a long time.

"They've been gone over by experts, Dr. Jackson. Langford and Shaw are sure about the date."

"Shaw?" she asks. "Dr. Shaw?" Her eyes are still closed.

"Dr. Shaw is the astrophysicist attached to Project Giza."

Her eyes fly open. " _Astrophysicist_? What the hell do you need an _astrophysicist_ for?" she demands indignantly.

"You said it was a Stargate, Dr. Jackson."

#

Ten thousand years old. Ten thousand years old _and Egyptian_. It _proves all her theories._

And Simon knew. Has known for at least a year, maybe more. Langford said he's been on the project that long. Knew she'd been _right_. He could have found her. Langford had. He could have apologized. For what he'd called her, if not for all the rest.

Damn him.

"It is," she says. "Whatever they meant by that. But I'm not who you want. I promise you." She stares at the Scotch in her hands, takes a drink.

Nice.

David threw sherry parties, god help them all. He'd done his graduate work at Oxford and never recovered. She hated the sweetness of sherry, had no palate for wine of any kind, though she'd drunk it to please him. Scotch had always been her drink; she'd developed a taste for it all the way back in her undergraduate days, but she'd never been able to afford the good stuff, though she can recognize it. Apparently Air Force Colonels can afford the best.

She glances up. Jack O'Neill's sitting across from her at the table, just looking at her.

That thought about kissing him has come back. She has even less idea of how he'd respond now -- or how she would -- than she did in the bar (is more certain he's nothing but trouble, and that's probably the attraction). She feels as if she's drowning. _Ten thousand years old._

She really should leave.

"Look, I know you ... researched me. Simon has to have told you."

#

"I didn't ask Gardner about you," O'Neill says. It didn't matter one way or the other after General West had told him to go get her. And ex-lovers are hardly reliable informants.

"Oh god, why not?" Her voice was animated a moment ago, when she was talking about Shaw and the Stargate. Now it's dead. He misses the glimpse he caught of the other Danielle Jackson. The one who _cared._

She rubs her eyes again. Settles her glasses back into place. Looks as if she's about to confess to several murders. "Well if I came, he'd tell you. And I'd have to leave. And I haven't got the money for that. So I'll tell you now. And I won't tell anybody about your ... Stargate." She tosses back the rest of her drink. An insult to a good Scotch. Glenfiddich is meant to be savored. Even if you savor a lot of it. 

Then she takes a deep breath and begins to ... recite. "Dr. Jackson believes that the Earth was visited by aliens. She believes that Egyptian civilization is far older than people believe. About ten thousand years older, in fact. She believes that it was established by aliens -- from outer space -- in precisely the form that we see it in later historical periods, because, among other indicators, Egyptian civilization does not evolve or change at all over its entire recorded history. Best of all, she believes that the actual purpose of the Egyptian Pyramids was not primarily as burial tombs for the Pharaohs, but as landing pads for alien spaceships. And that as such, they -- and particularly the Great Pyramid at Giza -- are also much older than they are popularly supposed to be." She's gazing past his shoulder, her face carefully expressionless. Determined not to care what he thinks. What anyone thinks.

"You and Gardner disagreed?" he says neutrally.

Her eyes come back to his face. She's trying for blank, but he'd love to play poker with her. He can read her like a book: surprise, suspicion, relief, and a faint disappointment based on the theory that he hasn't reacted because he's too stupid to understand what she said. He loves having people underestimate him.

"He felt my theories jeopardized his future career," she answers. Her face gives her away but her voice doesn't. It's completely expressionless.

And that's when it hits him. _Gardner knew this all along._ All of Dr. Jackson's theories about aliens and Ancient Egypt. He could have pointed Langford's team in the right direction a year and a half ago. And he never said a word.

"Excuse me for a moment, Dr. Jackson. Pour yourself another drink. Don't go anywhere."

He gets to his feet and digs his cellphone out of his pocket. Walks to the other end of the room and hits a number on the speed dial. Wakes up Samuels. Always a pleasure.

"This is Colonel O'Neill. I'd rather not bother General West, but I've just found out that Dr. Gardner has been deliberately withholding information mission-critical to Project Giza. I want his lying ass off the project and out the door by 1200 hours local today, and if Langford yelps, tell her she put her money on the wrong archaeologist."

When he looks up she's watching him.

Big blue eyes. A faint smile that says: _I'm smarter than anyone else in the room even if I am crazy._ But she isn't crazy. What she doesn't know -- and isn't going to know, because nobody on Langford's team knows it, and isn't going to -- is that there were alien skeletons buried under the Stargate. So Dr. Jackson's theories about aliens in Ancient Egypt are completely correct. And for all he knows, they _did_ use the Pyramids as landing pads. O'Neill doesn't really care.

She gets to her feet as he drops his cellphone back in his pocket. "You just fired Simon."

He hadn't really expected his end of the conversation to be all that private. "That's right. And you're coming to Colorado."

She walks over to him. Stops about eighteen inches away. Stares up at him as intently as if she could read his thoughts. If she could actually read his thoughts right now, she'd probably be trying to get out the door. Because he isn't thinking about Project Giza, or the look on General West's face when he trots Langford's latest find in through the door. He's thinking about the tattoo on Dr. Jackson's back, and wondering what the rest of it looks like.

"Just like that?" she asks.

"Just like that, Dr. Jackson. Langford wants you. Gardner won't be telling anyone anything. I think you've run out of reasons not to come."

"I have." Her voice wavers between question and statement, as if she's not quite sure.

"It would probably help matters if you looked a little more ... presentable," he says. The tank-top is cut very low. It's tight. There's nothing under it. He looks lower, and can see the silver gleam of the navel ring. Yeah, General West is going to love Dr. Jackson.

"How are you planning to arrange that?" she asks.

He realizes he's been staring at her navel for several seconds when he shouldn't have been looking at all and gets his eyes back up to her face. No poker face at all. She's pleased that he was looking. Would like to make a pass at him. Hasn't -- quite -- got the idea of how to go about it. He wonders what she'll do next.

"Because, you know, this is pretty much what I've got in the way of clothes. Unless you were planning to take me down to Macy's tomorrow, drag me into one of the dressing rooms, strip me naked--"

Close enough. He takes a step toward her and she doesn't move, so he puts a hand on her hip and one behind her shoulder, and she takes that as an invitation and comes toward him. Looking ... hopeful.

And this may be one of the worse ideas in the collection of bad ideas that has made up his recent life, but O'Neill tells himself that Dr. Jackson hasn't -- quite -- agreed to join the project, and it's better than spending tomorrow chasing her all over the city again. So he does what she's obviously trying to get him to do, and kisses her. She kisses like someone who knows how but is still surprised that anyone would want to kiss her.

There's only one place this can go. And she seems to be in something of a hurry to go there. Maybe she's afraid that one of them will change their minds. He wants to see that tattoo, though. All of it.

And normally -- a small part of his mind reminds him -- this is not the sort of thing he does. But it has been a long time since anything about his life was normal, or pleasant, or sane.

#

O'Neill wakes up in the morning with an odd unsettled feeling. He feels as if he ought to feel that he's made a big mistake, and he doesn't. Had a few too many, recruited Dr. Jackson for Project Giza, then took the good doctor to bed. What's wrong with this picture?

It's not that there haven't been women since Sara. There have. And it's always seemed like ... penance.

Not this time.

He checks his watch. It's already ten-hundred, but his body's still on Mountain Time, so it thinks it's two hours earlier than it is. And they didn't get to sleep until around five or so, local. He rolls over and regards the woman sharing his bed. (Not Dr. Jackson. Dani. She doesn't like to be called Danielle. And calling her 'Dr. Jackson' at this point would be pretty ridiculous.) She's face down in the mattress, pillow pulled over her head to shut out the light. The covers are down around her waist. He can see about half the tattoo.

The tattoo? It looks like a bug with bird wings holding a ball. She said it was a _khepri_. Egyptian solar symbol. So now he knows. He reaches over, traces the top of the orange circle with a fingertip. She stirs and mutters irritably. Not a morning person. He pulls the covers up over her shoulders and gets up to shower. The bathtub is filled with wet towels. He dumps them on the floor in the corner. At least she's left him some dry ones. When he comes out -- showered, shaved -- she's still asleep. He dresses -- uniform this time -- and she still doesn't stir. He hates to wake her -- morning afters can be awkward -- but they have places to be. Things to do.

He leans over the bed, pries the pillow out of her fingers. She groans, curling up into a tight ball under the covers.

"Wake up."

A slightly more conscious mutter. He finds a shoulder, shakes it gently.

"Dani."

She rolls over. Sits up. Belatedly remembers the sheet, and pulls it around her. Says something plaintively in a language he doesn't know. Repeats it in English.

"It's the middle of the night." Her eyes are still closed.

"It's ten o'clock. Busy day."

At the sound of his voice her eyes open. She stares at him. Peers at him, really. He remembers she wears glasses. He looks around until he finds them. Hands them to her. She puts them on.

"Jack?" She doesn't sound quite sure. Well, he supposes the uniform is kind of a shock.

"Good morning." He smiles at her, hoping it is.

She nods, as if he's answered a question. "I--" she smiles back, tentatively. "Not usually up this early," she says apologetically.

"I gathered. But you've got a lot to do today." He picks up his bathrobe, drapes it across the bed within reach, turns away so she can get out of bed and into it. She takes the hint.

"Oh, god, is there coffee?" She sounds desperate.

"I'll call Room Service." He picks up the phone as she staggers into the bathroom. Still not really awake.

#

What possessed her? What did she agree to? Something? Anything? What? Dani stares into the bathroom mirror -- it's still fogged; Jack must have just showered -- and feels as if she's stepped off a cliff.

One of the two of them is crazy. Or maybe both.

She hasn't had nearly enough sleep. Scotch on top of beer before it; she can tell she isn't really tracking yet. The sex has left her feeling as if she's been hit in the head with a hammer. It was good, though. And doesn't he look like a freaky fetish gone wrong in that uniform?

She wants-

She wishes-

She fills the sink with cold water and splashes it on her face to try to derail her train of thought, but it doesn't work. She'd really like this to be -- or to have been -- more than just a one-night stand. She doesn't know whether it's Jack O'Neill, or because she'd just like a little human contact. Although he's not really her type. Not that she _has_ a type. To be fair, she's probably not his type, either. She wonders what his type is.

She hunts through last night's pile of discarded towels until she finds the two washcloths with the least eye makeup on them. Uses one -- with some of his toothpaste -- as a makeshift toothbrush. Takes the other into the shower. Friction will have to accomplish what soap cannot -- since she can't use the soap -- but the water pressure is good. There have been times, in the last year and a half, when she's been certain that Paradise was not a garden, but an enormous bathroom with unlimited hot water and excellent water pressure. This will do. It's almost as good as coffee.

Thoughts of Jack blend in her mind with thoughts of the Coverstone and the Stargate -- which she still hasn't seen. The pictures of the Coverstone weren't really clear, and she didn't get to examine them for very long when Catherine showed them to her. In ... Colorado? ... she'll be able to touch it; examine it up close. How big is it? He said the object it covered was thirty feet across. It has to be that big, then, or bigger.

She stays in the shower until Jack knocks on the door and opens it a crack. "Coffee," he says, when she pokes her head through the curtain.

#

The United States Government has, by decree, proclaimed him an officer and a gentleman. They've also decided he was a number of other things, some of them far less polite. So when Dani hits the bathroom -- and he's sure she's going to be in there a few minutes -- he takes the opportunity to go through her things.

There's a few dollars cash and some subway tokens in the pockets of her jacket. A couple of packets of Kleenex. Visine. But it's in her pants pockets that he finds most of what he's looking for. They hit the floor with a thud last night, and he already knows she doesn't carry a purse. He inspects each item quickly and carefully. Hard-sided glasses case on a lanyard. A ring of keys, probably all to the locks on her apartment. More Kleenex. A bottle of pills -- OTC antihistamines. Notepad. Pen.

A wallet.

Thirty dollars cash; Citibank ATM card with the last transaction slip wrapped around it, indicating her current balance as of day before yesterday is $132.50 after withdrawal; Chicago driver's license -- the picture looks pretty much like the one the Institute sent. No credit cards. A number of business cards, mostly from bars. He puts everything back the way he found it. Unless she has a secret savings account somewhere -- something he somehow doubts -- Dani's flat broke.

She never let Langford get around to discussing money. Didn't even charge Langford for the work she _did_ do. O'Neill's never liked any of the civilian side of Project Giza. Doesn't much like the project itself, come to that -- it's a science fiction black budget waste of time. But now -- he's decided -- he _really_ doesn't like Simon Gardner.

Room service comes -- he's ordered breakfast -- and he knocks on the door of the bathroom, because apparently Dani's decided to take up residence in the shower.

Eventually she comes out -- wrapped up in his robe again. Her glasses are fogged. "Coffee," he says, pointing toward the table.

She pours the first cup, dumps in four packets of sugar, and drinks it down as if it were ice cold. Shudders. Pours a second. It goes the same way. With the third, she finally slows down. Just sips it. He knows the exact moment the world slips into real focus for her, because she glances up at him and blushes.

She _blushes._

Nobody's looked at him and blushed since High School.

"Morning," she says, staring at her coffee.

They'd better get this over with before it gets too awkward. "Look, Dani, about last night--" He's going to say all the right words -- apologize for taking advantage of her, tell her they both had fun, that any fault involved is his, but that she won't have to see him again once they get out to Colorado -- but she looks up at him again and this time she doesn't look away. He can tell it's an effort.

He can also tell exactly what she's thinking. She's thinking that last night he was drunk, bored, being polite in the least polite way there is. Just closing the deal. And that now it's tomorrow, and he's going to say that they've both had their fun, and it's time to move on. And it's so close to what he was going to say -- the right words for all the wrong reasons -- that it makes him realize he doesn't want to say those words at all. Not get this over with.

"I'm glad you stayed," he says.

And she just ... lights up. The way he saw her for those few seconds in the bar, slipping the Scarlatti into the middle of all that industrial noise. Nods. "Me too," she answers.

#

He eats breakfast. She has some toast and finishes off the pot of coffee. "What do you need to do to leave New York?" he asks.

"Get my things. Tell Magda she needs to get a new keyboard player. Tell Jason he needs a new roommate. Close my bank account. That's about it." She shrugs.

"How long will that take?"

"A few ... hours?" She doesn't sound sure. "I can leave a note for Jason. It might take me a while to find Magda."

"Do you need help with your things?" Because Project Giza is currently very-well-funded, and he can arrange to have the Air Force pack and move her within 24 hours. It will be quicker that way.

"For a couple of suitcases? I'll manage." She sounds amused.

"I'll go with you."

#

They take his car, because O'Neill distrusts her description. In his experience, 'a couple of suitcases,' means a dozen. At least.

Since they take the car, he has to find some place to park it, and as a result they end up almost a dozen blocks away. In this neighborhood, his Blues get him a lot of disbelieving stares. Their problem, not his. There's a lock on the street door, and four more locks on the apartment door itself. By the time they arrive it's 1300 local and Dani says that she loves Mondays because everybody goes out early so she can sleep in peace. He follows her back to what she says is her room. It's a cubbyhole just off the kitchen. There's just about enough room for a twin bed in it and not much else. 

"Used to be the maid's room -- oh, about a hundred years or so ago. Nobody else wants it, because it gets so hot in the winter. But I like the heat," she says.

He stands in the doorway while she collects her belongings from hooks on the walls and from under the bed. One large battered verging-on-antique suitcase. She opens it. It's full of books. She closes it again. A backpack, which seems to function as a portable desk. She checks to make sure her checkbook is there. An empty duffel. That goes on the bed, and he watches as she packs what is apparently her entire wardrobe into it. Half a dozen t-shirts. A couple of plaid flannel shirts. A few more pairs of pants. Socks. Underwear.

That's all.

"I used to have other clothes, but things happened," she says in neutral tones, her back to him.

"What kind of things?" he asks.

"Doesn't matter. Things. God, I'm really going to impress the Air Force, aren't I?"

"I figure Langford owes you for the work you've already done. Buy yourself something impressive before we leave."

She doesn't answer. The last thing she adds to the duffel is what looks like her portable medicine cabinet. Everything from aspirin to soap.

"Towels? Kitchen sink?" he asks. The fact that she was being accurate when she said everything she owns would fit into a couple of suitcases annoys him.

"The sheets and towels are mine, but I don't want them. And nobody would want that kitchen sink." She picks up the duffle and the backpack but lets him take the suitcase. They're halfway down the hall when she stops.

"Damn," she says in resigned tones. "I forgot. The rent. I didn't stop at a bank. I don't have enough cash."

"How much is it?"

"My share is a hundred and twenty-five and I can't write him a check; I'm closing the account. Look, you can wait here; there's a deli with an ATM a couple of blocks from here. I'll be right back--"

He pulls out his wallet, hands her four fifties, two twenties, and a ten. She takes the bills only because he makes it obvious that if she doesn't he's going to drop them on the floor. "I don't know what you charge for translation, but I know Langford didn't pay you for the work you did last week. The Air Force's _per diem_ for civilian consultants is $250 a day. Deduct this from whatever you bill her."

She stares at the money in her hands. "This is more than--"

What she'd been going to charge to do the work that had stalled Langford's team for the last two years? "I figure Langford owes you."

"I guess she does," she says after a long pause. "The government's paying you back for this, right?" she asks suspiciously.

"Oh yeah," he says.

There's another delay while she goes down the hall to write a note to the absent Jason and leave the rent money, but it's a short one. She comes back, picks up her bags, and they go. Three of the locks on the door are snap-locks, so she leaves her keys inside. A minor transgression, she says, not to lock the deadbolt, but nobody will be able to scold her for it now. Then it's back to the hotel to drop off her things.

"I saw a Citibank across the street. I'll go close out my account and then I'll ... look for Magda."

"Don't be too long." 

While she's gone he makes his own arrangements. Transport for Colonel Jack O'Neill and supercargo to Peterson AFB. He flew in to McGuire AFB down in South Jersey, and this isn't a situation that qualifies for a special flight, but there's one leaving tomorrow at 1830 with room for them. Plenty of time. He phones Project Giza to let General West know that his mission has been a success (so far) and that he'll be flying into Peterson with Dr. Jackson tomorrow evening. General West wants to know if Dr. Jackson can do what Dr. Langford thinks she can.

"She seems competent enough, sir," O'Neill says neutrally. It's not really the word he'd use to describe Dani. It doesn't seem adequate somehow. But it will do for the General.

"Very good, Colonel. I look forward to meeting her," General West says.

#

She returns twenty minutes later -- mission accomplished -- carrying six coffees in a cardboard tray. "I got one for you, too," she says, not-quite-waving the bag she's also carrying. "You know, coverstones were almost exclusively used over tombs. Why would whoever buried the Stargate use one to bury an inanimate object?"

 _Because they didn't just bury the Stargate. They buried bodies._ Apparently the two of them have been having a conversation in his absence, and one O'Neill would rather not have, because Dani Jackson is just too damned smart. "You'll have to ask Dr. Langford. That's not my end of things."

She's sitting down, taking the lid off one of the cups of coffee -- apparently she thinks that six Starbucks 3XLs are the minimum necessary to support human life -- when he says that. She looks up. He's never actually seen someone's lip curl before.

"Catherine Langford? Jack. _Please._ An amateur Egyptologist in the grand old tradition? I admit her father was something in the field, but he crashed and burned back in the 1940s, and hardly did anything substantial after that. If that's the cutting-edge scholarship you people are relying on to figure this thing out, I can see I don't need to count on any long-term employment."

"We'll find something for you to do." He can't wait for her to start banging heads with Langford.

"In the Air Force's new Egyptology department?"

For all O'Neill knows, it has one. Not his business. "Speaking of which, we're on a flight out of McGuire at 1830 tomorrow. So we should leave here around 1500 -- three o'clock -- at the latest." McGuire's only 90 minutes away, but traffic here is hellish.

"Oh." 

She sounds a little breathless. O'Neill tells himself he doesn't care. Not enough to ask about it. "So why don't we go have lunch? Or dinner? Or breakfast? And then you can look into giving up your glamorous rock star career."

#

The hotel concierge directs Jack to a nearby steakhouse -- kind of touristy, and the prices make Dani blink -- she could eat for a week on the price of one dinner -- but the food is good and Jack obviously expects to be the one paying for their meal. He explains that it's actually the government that's paying, which makes her feel less guilty.

She's glad he took off his uniform before they came out. Everybody stared at him when they were out earlier, and it makes him look like 'Colonel O'Neill' instead of 'Jack.' And she has no interest in daydreaming about 'Colonel O'Neill'.

But Jack ... if she doesn't push her luck, she can pretend that Jack actually wants to be with her. It's amazing -- and a little painful -- to find how much she craves the fantasy; she's always prided herself on facing the world without comforting delusions. One more thing to lay at Simon's doorstep. Before Simon, she'd never noticed or cared about couplehood and the mating dance, but it's as if he flipped a switch in her brain. She can't unlearn the things he taught her, no matter how much she'd like to.

Jack had been going to give her the polite brush-off this morning. She's sure of it. What made him change his mind at the last minute? Guilt? She knows she's not that bright about people sometimes, but even she knows that she isn't allowed to tell him that he has nothing to feel guilty for, because that would be too personal a conversation, demanding an intimacy from him she'll never earn. She wishes she _were_ allowed to have it, though. She'd tell him that he took nothing she didn't offer up to him on a plate. And will offer up again at the first opportunity. A handsome man. Gentle when appropriate. The memories will be good ones. Leaving is still going to suck, though, no matter which of them does it, or what the reasons are, and she isn't sure why. But for now there will be another night -- at least one more -- with Jack, and she tells herself not to think past that.

After dinner -- maybe it's a late lunch, though by the time they eat it's after five -- they go back to the hotel and Dani starts making phone calls, because they aren't playing again until next weekend (they've been doing Fridays through Sunday at _Perestroika_ for a while now, and only get midweek work when they're lucky) and aren't rehearsing again until Wednesday. Magda hasn't got a telephone -- she's convinced it would be tapped, god knows by whom -- but eventually Dani tracks down Kolya -- a process involving nine telephone calls and five languages; Croat, Russian, Polish, French, and Armenian -- who gives her Magda's latest girlfriend's number, and Dani calls Anastasia and persuades her to put Magda on the phone. She then spends the next forty minutes convincing Magda she isn't being kidnapped by the KGB.

Yes, she's been offered a job. A good job. A very good job. Yes, she has to leave at once. She has no idea when she'll be back. But it's a good job. A very good job.

Jack sits and reads the paper throughout the conversation, ostentatiously ignoring it (though it's in Croat, and he was only speaking Russian last night, so he probably can't follow it). After promising Magda -faithfully -- that she'll write frequently and come back if she can (as soon as she can), and that no, she really doesn't have time to come by for a farewell drink because she has to leave early in the morning (the Eastern Bloc drinks the way it smokes, and she's not that fond of vodka), she can finally hang up. She sits back, sighing. "She wanted me to come by so she could give me my cut of the money from last night. I told her I didn't need it." She shrugs. "It isn't much, and, well ... they could use it."

#

"Nice of you," O'Neill says. He sees her shrug again. Embarrassed. Not used to compliments.

"Everything's done," she says. She looks a little lost. "What now?"

"Tomorrow we leave. Even crossing time zones we'll get there too late to go up to the Mountain, so we'll report in on Wednesday. Dr. Langford is Civilian Head of Project. You'll see her there." He watches as she starts to work it all out for the first time. Trying to connect the dots.

"And who are _you_ , Jack?" she asks. "What project? What mountain?"

"You'll be working in a place called Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center. The project is called Project Giza. I'm the military liaison. I report to General West, who's the Military Head of Project."

"But what's the project _about_?"

"Langford's team is to translate the coverstone. You'll have all the information they have access to." The next question -- or statement -- is obvious. That Langford's team doesn't have all the information. But she doesn't take the obvious next step. She stops. Just looking at him. Jordan said she was smart. Jordan tried not to say she was stubborn. It's a fatal combination, O'Neill knows from his own experience. But he didn't realize until he met her just _how_ damned smart Dr. Dani Jackson was. If you tell her anything at all she starts ... thinking. And thinking can get you into real trouble.

Look where it's gotten her.

"And I'm on Langford's team. To translate," she says, after a long pause.

"Try to do a little better negotiating your salary than the last time you talked to her," he suggests.

#

In the morning -- well, noon local; she's not a morning person -- Dani tells him she's going to go buy something presentable to wear.

O'Neill doesn't really like the idea. They only have a few hours until they leave. But he's seen her wardrobe, and 'something presentable' would probably be a good idea, especially since she's going to meet the General: West is Old School. She promises to hurry. He tells her to meet him in the lobby by three at the latest. Take a cab.

When she gets back -- half an hour late and accompanied by two large shopping bags -- he barely recognizes her. She's wearing her new clothes. Tweed blazer. Khakis. Sweater and blouse. The punk rocker is gone.

"I thought I ought to--" she begins.

"Come on. We're late."

#

Traffic out of the city isn't actually too bad this early in the day. O'Neill surfs the radio, looking for a game, then gives up and settles for the classical station.

"Mind if I smoke?" he asks.

"Go ahead." He hasn't seen her smoke yet, and she shakes her head when he offers her his pack, so he rolls down his window, partly for politeness and partly because it's a nice day. She cracks her window for cross-ventilation as he lights up.

"New look for you," he says.

She smiles faintly, shakes her head. "Old look. I used to teach."

"Any good?"

"Sure, Jack. That's why I went to New York to play in a band."

That stops the conversation for a while. They get through the tunnel, and onto the highway. The area looks a little like Chicago. Smells like it, too. He checks his watch. On-schedule, or close enough. They should be able to make up the lost time if they don't run into any tie-ups.

"I hate to fly," she says after a while.

"Too far to walk," he says.

"I know," she says.

"So what _do_ you like?" he asks. Because he's curious. And it's been a long time since he's been curious about anything -- anyone -- just for the hell of it.

"Chocolate, Egypt, coffee, linguistic analysis -- not in that order. Eighteenth century Italian opera. Translation is interesting, but usually not very challenging. Doesn't matter. Everything I've trained to do is pretty much useless now. There's still coffee, though." She isn't complaining. Just stating facts.

"You make too many assumptions," he tells her.

"Why? Does the Air Force need someone who can build a catapult? Talk to Ancient Egyptians? Read Linear B? Tell them about the home life of the Sumerians?" Now she sounds irritated, as if she thinks he might be baiting her. And he is, just a bit. He wants to see her fight back.

"Maybe they do. So ... which composers?"

"I'd have figured you for a rock and roll kind of guy."

"Way too many assumptions."

#

Dani's a miserable white-knuckle flyer, huddled silent and head down in her seat from the moment she belts herself in, even though the plane's still on the ground. Once they're airborne, O'Neill talks to her to distract her; more personal outreach than he's done in nearly two years. Dani's got the grim concentration of someone who's just trying to get through the next minute without screaming. Part of him wonders why he makes the effort. Part of him concentrates on getting and holding her attention. He used to be good at handling people. Taking care of them. A leader of men. One of the best. He shut all that away after Charlie. Went through his days by the book and by the numbers after he was reactivated. Just as well the Giza mission didn't pan out then. He'd have gotten any team the Air Force gave him killed.

And now?

Well, everything depends on whether Dani can translate the coverstone. If she can't, it isn't going to matter whether or not he's lost those skills, will it? But he finds he cares. Funny to care about things again. It tells him just how far gone he's been. He's been in dark places before, but there'd always been someone out there to bring him back. Before.

After thirty minutes he gets the bottle out of his briefcase, and pours a couple of strictly medicinal shots into her -- to hell with regulations -- because otherwise he isn't sure she's going to survive, and he sure as hell isn't going to enjoy watching five hours of silent panic. Finally gets a conversation going, somewhere over Indiana.

Finds out she has no idea what -- or where -- Cheyenne Mountain is. Isn't sure what NORAD is, either, when he mentions it. He tries discussing movies with her, only to find out that she hasn't seen very many, and isn't sure what ones she's seen. Television? Doesn't watch it. Books? Hasn't read much fiction published in the last hundred years. Doesn't listen to modern music, though she's happy to go on at great length about the influences of African music on the development of American popular music, so she's heard of Elvis Presley. Started college at sixteen. Apparently has no family -- and they get off that subject very quickly. Onto the subject of pizza, which was apparently invented in Ancient Persia. He finds out a lot about Ancient Egypt. Less about her theories. Eventually they land. When the wheels touch the tarmac, she takes her first full breath since she saw the plane back in New York. He has to unbuckle her seatbelt for her, since her hands are shaking so hard.

#

Jack O'Neill isn't like anyone Dani's ever met.

She's actually met a lot of different kinds of people. One of those PhDs is in Anthropology, after all, and by the age of twelve she'd lived in most of the Near and Middle East, as well as selected parts of Europe and South America. And a year and a half on the streets of New York -- some of it _on_ the streets of New York -- will introduce you to a wide cross-section of humanity. She may have spent nearly half her life -- the last eleven years -- in various ivy halls and ivory towers -- but that hardly means she's naive. She's even met military before. American and otherwise. Ex- and current. And yeah, there's no doubt that Jack is military down to his underwear. That he doesn't know a scarab from a saltshaker -- or if he does, he doesn't care. Despite that, he's oddly patient with her. More than Simon ever was, truth be told. And there's something beneath the surface. Not inarticulate, precisely. Just unspoken. Not stupid, though he doesn't mind if someone thinks so. Not a military robot -- she's met those, and can tell the difference. A very private, very complex man.

Interesting.

She wonders if she'll see him at all when she's at Cheyenne Mountain. And how long she'll be there before Catherine kicks her out.

When they land -- and oh, god, every flight is worse than the last: she went to New York from Chicago by train -- she expects a car and driver and a kiss-off. He hasn't said, she hasn't asked, and, well, she really hasn't want to know. But a soldier meets them at the plane and loads her suitcase and duffel and his suitcase into the back of a Jeep, and drives for a couple of miles -- they're on a military base somewhere, but apparently not the one she's going to work at -- and when they reach a parking lot -- having passed through several checkpoints to do so -- it's full of civilian cars. The Jeep pulls up behind a huge black truck with a four-place cab.

She shivers, even in her wool sweater and nice tweed blazer. It's May, but they're in the Mountains, and it's colder here than it is in New York. She checks her watch. Almost midnight.

"You'll have to set that back. We're on Mountain Time here. It's only 2345 here. 10:45," Jack says to her. "In the back," he tells the soldier, opening the door of the truck. The man transfers the duffle and shopping bags and suitcases -- hers, Jack's -- to the back of the truck.

The soldier salutes. Jack salutes. It's kind of weird. The Jeep drives off.

"I figured I'd take you back to my place for the night," Jack says neutrally.

"I'd like that," she says. A surprise. She tries not to think of it as a reprieve.

#

There's another of those chances to ... back out? turn aside? when they get to Colorado Springs. Because the sensible reasonable thing to do would be for him to park Dani in a nice hotel somewhere and have Samuels send a car and driver for her tomorrow. They haven't ... discussed ... any of this. O'Neill's grateful for that. He isn't much for discussing feelings at the best of times. Right now he isn't sure what his are.

Women, he knows, from the perspective granted by almost fifteen years of -- failed -- marriage, like to discuss things. Sara was always after him to talk. 

Dani's perfectly happy to talk, and at great length. But not about people or feelings. And not -- he's found out by now -- about anything much more recent than Ancient Egypt. She's good at changing the subject. Bad at lying. Hopeless at concealing her thoughts and feelings. She hasn't asked him any questions. Not the obvious kind. Not the _'am I going to see you again?'_ kind. As if she's already sure she knows the answer, and just doesn't want to hear it for as long as possible. Perversely, it irritates him. It's supposed to be what every man wants. A woman who doesn't ... cling.

He could drop her at a hotel and she'd just say goodbye. He knows that. And because of that, he takes her home.

After the divorce, he bought a place with an easy commute to the Mountain. His house is only thirty minutes away from the Base. He's even got a guest room. Not that he wants Dani in the guest room. He's admitting that much. And it's only for tonight. If that's what she wants.

Apparently she wants at least that much.

He's no stranger to emotional scars. He's been around Dani long enough to recognize the signs. It looks like good Doctor Gardner really did a number on her. Because, logically, if there was a dust-up between Dr. Jackson and her junior colleague, the junior colleague is the one who should have left.

Right?

Apparently not. But then, Gardner wasn't the one who believed that Ancient Egypt was full of space aliens. Which turns out -- apparently -- to be true.

#

Jack wants her to come home with him.

She won't ruin it by asking questions. Or hoping. Or wishing. It will be nice to see where he lives, though. One more thing to flesh out her half-finished picture of him. Answer all the questions she isn't going to ask. Because asking implies a right to ask. Implies possession of a sort. A commitment. Love. She loves too easily, that's her problem. Because everything she loves dies. People. Relationships. Careers. Dreams. So she won't think. She'll just go.

The house is nice.

She stands in the living room, looking around. Jack yanks at his tie, dragging off his jacket at the same time. "Gotta get out of this," he explains, as if his uniform is the poisoned garment from some Classical myth. "Make yourself comfortable."

He disappears. She wanders around the living room. Pictures on the walls. Jack. Younger, smiling, with a fair-haired woman and a small boy. Another photo, the boy alone. 

Married.

Still?

She looks around. No. He would have said. She's certain of that.

Dani contemplates widowhood, but no. Jack would have the boy with him if his wife were dead. And would have talked about him. God knows he raised every other topic during the flight. Tried everything but enrolling her in the Mile High Club to distract her during the flight. Divorced, then. She wonders where they are, and if he sees his son.

Medals in a case. A lot of them. She supposes Colonels collect a lot of medals over the years. A photo of Jack in a coverall in front of a plane. Airplane models on the mantelpiece. She wanders to the windows, but it's too dark to see out.

Jack comes back. Sweatshirt and khakis that have definitely seen better days. Deck shoes without socks.

"Beer?" he asks.

"Sure. Do you mind if I, um, change?" She feels overdressed.

"Oh, yeah, hey, let's get your stuff out of the hall." He picks up her duffel and her suitcase; she takes the backpack and shopping bags and follows him down the hall to what is obviously a guest room.

"You can change in here," he tells her. And when she's set her things down on the bed, he steps in for a quick but unhurried kiss before he leaves, making it clear that he does not expect her to sleep here.

She likes having things clear.

She likes _him._ His assurance. There is nothing tentative about Jack.

It's a fine line, certainly, between irritating overconfidence and annoying timidity. Easy to err too far in either direction when you don't know each other well. And late 20th century American culture doesn't have clearly-defined social or sexual roles for them to play. Expectations are fluid. It leaves a lot of room for confusion. Especially -- she knows with resignation -- for someone who has spent her life studying the cultures of five thousand years ago and ignoring her own. But Jack makes it simple for her. Deliberately? Naturally? Will she know him long enough for the answer to such questions to matter?

She takes off her blazer and lays it on the bed. The room is chilly, and she shivers again. Winters in New York were nightmares of cold, bringing back memories of her teenage years. She doesn't own a really warm coat any more. She had one. Lost it.

She abandons any thought of dressing seductively -- so far as her wardrobe will allow -- in favor of warmth. Strips off the clothes bought to impress her as-yet-unmet future employers with her sanity and normalcy and begins to layer. T-shirt. Flannel shirt. Zip-front sweatshirt. Cargo pants. Socks. Her battered combat boots.

As she starts to zip up her pants, she looks down at the navel ring. Considers it for a moment. _Time for a change._ Unscrews the ball clasp. Works it free. The piercing is slightly reddened. She rubs it. Fastens her pants.

There's a mirror on the wall. She catches sight of her reflection. The earrings in her ears match the navel ring: stainless steel, captive ball, industrial and menacing. They don't seem to go with the rest of the look, somehow. Or the room. Or the idea of Dr. Danielle Jackson, US Air Force Consultant. She unscrews them and works them free.

Five hoops of steel in the palm of her hand, and New York Dani is gone. Only the tattoo remains, but as the artist told her, the difference between true love and a tattoo is that a tattoo is forever. That's okay. Many ancient cultures -- including the Egyptians -- practiced tattooing, and unless she's naked who's going to see it? In a few months her hair will grow out, and the last of New York will be gone. She wonders where she'll be in a year. Certainly not here.

When she goes back out into the living room, Jack has built a fire in the fireplace, and is waiting with two beers.

#

One thing you can say about Dani; you'll never be bored. So far O'Neill's seen the Punk Rocker, the College Professor, and now, a pretty laid-back little girl in khaki and flannel who looks like she belongs here. She sits on the hearth, her back to the fire, soaking up the warmth and drinking beer from the bottle.

"Not much in the fridge," he says. "Eggs. I could order a pizza."

"Pizza's good," she agrees. "Anchovies?"

"Fish do not belong on pizza," he tells her. "No arguing." 

They compromise on pepperoni, and he goes to phone. When he comes back, she's staring down at his chess set. He was in the middle of a game -- playing against himself -- when he left. Same game, actually, for the last year. Most people would ask if he played. A stupid question, but it's the one everyone asks. She asks what his ranking is. He just shakes his head. "Strictly amateur night here."

She shakes her head right back, disagreeing with him. "Give me a game?" she asks. "I'm not ranked. Well, a long time ago. Years. Not very high, and not internationally. I'll spot you a rook," she offers coaxingly.

"You do that," he says, and starts setting up the board.

He's out of practice, but her strategy is all over the map. By the time the pizza arrives she's lost a couple of pawns, and seems as pleased about it as he is. It takes her another hour and a half to beat him, and by then they've finished the pizza and killed the six-pack. The fire's burned down to coals. Time for bed.

It's the first time in a long time the bottle hasn't gone with him. He doesn't miss it.

#

He rousts her out of bed at six o'clock the next morning, waking her thoroughly by the ruthless expedient of dumping her into the shower and turning on the cold. After the shriek comes what he assumes is swearing -- the rhythm is right, though -- possibly fortunately -- he can't understand the words. He reaches into the shower. Hands her soap and a washcloth.

"Rise and shine. First day on the job."

She glares down at the objects in her hands murderously. "I can't use that," she says, and stalks -- wet, naked, dripping -- the length of the house to get her own things. Comes back with her arms full of bottles and a cake of soap. Climbs back into the shower. It's still running on cold, but apparently she's too mad to notice or care. "Coffee," she snaps.

Grinning, he goes off to make coffee.

#

They're at the Mountain by 0730. O'Neill called ahead while she was in the shower. Simon Gardner is history. Six checkpoints before they hit the first elevator, and she gets quieter with every one. Major Kawalsky meets the car and takes Dani's suitcase of books. Apparently it was vital to bring them along. The three of them get into the first elevator together. Kawalsky looks at him questioningly. Dr. Jackson is obviously not what he expected. O'Neill thinks Kawalsky should have seen her two days ago.

Or ... not.

O'Neill signs the two of them in when they reach the bottom. Last checkpoint. They get into the second elevator. Meyers and Shaw are waiting for them at the bottom.

"Dr. Jackson. Dr. Gary Meyers. Dr. Gardner has told us so much about you. I'm sorry he couldn't be here today--" Meyers glares at O'Neill. Dani just glares. O'Neill can tell, even though all he can see is her back. It's gone completely rigid.

"Yes. Dr. Meyers. I so enjoyed your _interpretation_ of the coverstone hieroglyphs. May I see the coverstone itself?" Dani asks. Her voice is distant. Arrogant. Yet another Dani Jackson, one O'Neill has only glimpsed before.

Meyers stiffens. Lowers his outstretched hand. Steps back. Shaw flings herself into the breech. "Dr. Jackson? Barbara Shaw. The token astrophysicist on the team. This way." She walks off briskly. Dani follows her.

"You aren't going to get away with this, Colonel O'Neill," Meyers says in a low voice. O'Neill doesn't bother to answer. He already has.

When they get to the Coverstone Lab, Langford is there, but O'Neill can tell that Dani barely notices her. Once she sees the Coverstone, no one and nothing else exists. She walks over to it slowly, places both hands flat against its surface. Leans forward, almost as if she's listening. After a moment she straightens up.

"I need what you already have on this," she says to nobody in particular. "The original records of the Giza dig. A list of the other artifacts found at the site. Someplace to work. And some coffee."

"You heard the woman," O'Neill says to Kawalsky. "Coffee. And Kawalsky? Better bring it by the bucket."

"Yes, sir," Kawalsky says. He sets down the suitcase and computer.

O'Neill leaves to make his report to General West. Dr. Jackson has been acquired.

#

The next thing O'Neill discovers about Danielle Jackson is that the woman has no 'off' switch. After he's made his report to the General -- leaving a number of irrelevant details out -- he goes to his office and waits for the explosions, but they don't come. Around 1700 he goes down to the Lab. Dani's lying on the top of the scaffolding erected around the Coverstone, staring into the stone. He has to speak to her several times before he gets her attention.

"Jack," she says. She looks flushed and dazed. Dreamy-eyed. An expression he associates with ... bed.

"Time to go?" he suggests.

"Just a little longer," she says. "Charlie will drive me."

And if not Kawalsky -- since this is end-of-shift for Kawalsky, too -- then someone else, because both the Coverstone and the Stargate are in the middle of a top secret military facility, and civilians are not just let to wander around unattended.

"I'll see you later," he says.

He doesn't.

She's still there the next morning when he arrives. She obviously hasn't left. She does leave the Lab during the day, but only to go as far as her new office. Kawalsky tells him that the night guard -- Sergeant Baker -- told him that Dr. Jackson was back and forth between the Coverstone Lab and her new office several times during the night, so there goes any thought that she might just have gone to sleep on top of the scaffolding.

When O'Neill goes down to her office later that day to suggest that taking a break might be in order, she tells him that she hasn't finished her preliminary assessment of the Coverstone yet and she'll let him know when she has.

He collects an absent-minded and highly-illicit kiss out of the deal. But she doesn't come back to the house that night either. Baker tells Kawalsky (who tells him) that she spends half the night pacing the corridor between her office and the Coverstone Lab and the other half in the Lab itself. O'Neill tells Kawalsky to make sure she eats.

Friday afternoon -- to everyone's delight -- there's a project meeting. It runs late. General West mentions that he _still_ hasn't met Dr. Jackson. O'Neill promises to arrange it as soon as possible. He makes up his mind that Dani's absolutely going home tonight. Home being his place, a thought he doesn't examine too closely.

Besides, it's Friday.

As far as he can tell, Dani hasn't slept at all or eaten that much since they came in the door Wednesday morning, though she's certainly done her best to drink the Base dry of coffee. End of preliminary assessment or not, O'Neill thinks a break is in order. She isn't in her office. He finds her in the Coverstone Lab, leaning against the base of the stone, sound asleep.

He gets her on her feet and walks her all the way up to the surface and into the truck without, as far as he can tell, actually waking her. Her eyes are open, but there isn't anybody home. She goes back to sleep once he settles her in the passenger seat and buckles her in. Half an hour later he's pulling up in the driveway. She wakes up when he opens the passenger door. At least enough to yawn and ask questions.

"What time is it?"

"Friday. Come on."

She showers while he calls the Chinese place, ordering a selection of things because he doesn't know what she likes. She comes out -- barefoot, flannel, and khakis again -- a few minutes before the food is scheduled to arrive. He gets her a beer and lights his first cigarette of the day. You don't smoke when you're a mile underground and all the air has to be scrubbed twice before it reaches you.

She sneezes violently and looks startled and contrite. "Sorry. I'm behind on my pills. I forgot to take them, I think. Antihistamines," she says, catching his look. "I'm allergic."

"To what?" he asks. He'd rather not poison a guest.

"Everything," she says, with a sigh. She goes off in search of her pills, beer in hand -- all her stuff, except her books, is still here from Wednesday. When he finishes his cigarette, he doesn't light another.

When she comes back she's regarding him warily. He's sitting on the couch. She stops in front of him, staring down at him. 

"I'm ... here," she says. As if she's finally noticed. The perfect picture of a mad scientist. And he's sure she really _has_ just noticed where she is -- or, to be completely accurate, thought about what the fact that she's back here in his house instead of in some hotel, or in a bunkroom on the Base, means.

"That's right," he says. He snaps his fingers absently as he thinks of something. "Didn't Langford put you in for accommodations? Some place to go?" She should have. And the paperwork should have crossed his desk at some point, but he doesn't remember having seen it.

Dani looks at him. And looks ... horrified. Runs her hand through her hair. The length and the bad dye-job -- _really_ bad dye-job -- makes it stand up straight.

"Oh, god," she says. "Sorry. Wasn't thinking. Papers. There were papers on my desk. I thought I'd look at them later. I guess it's ... later? I- I'll- Where's the phone? I can call a cab. I--"

He reaches out and tries to take her hand. Misses, because she's suddenly jittering around too much. Gets a hand on her hip instead. That will do. He pulls. She stumbles forward, slides across him and sits down beside him on the couch with a gawky thump.

"Cab service is lousy around here. Besides, the food will be here any minute."

"Jack, I--"

"Dani, when was the last time you slept?"

Direct questions, he's found, shut her up. She focuses on them, trying to decide how to answer. Hating to tell the truth, incapable of lying. She's saved from coming up with any kind of an answer this time, though, because the doorbell rings. The food is here. As they eat, he asks how she's getting along with the rest of the geeks. He still hasn't heard a peep out of any of them, and Langford hasn't darkened his door either, and she's usually in his office at least once a day demanding something. Since he fired Gardner out from under her, that should have been good for at least one tantrum.

"Oh, I told them all to go away until I had something for them," she says absently, waving her chopsticks. "Their work's useless to me. I might need Barbara, though. I want to see the Stargate."

Talking about the project has stopped her talking about leaving. She can barely keep her eyes open by now. She'll be face-down in her fried rice in another minute.

"I'll arrange it," he says. Monday morning, bright and early. And Langford along for the ride, he thinks. Too good to miss. "General West wants to meet you, too."

"They aren't hieroglyphs," she says, staring not at him, but _through_ him. "But they're in a cartouche. So what the hell _are_ they?"

"Your department," he says. And it is. Not Langford's. Not any more.

"M'm," she says. "Some kind of symbol-driven system. Ideograms... ? But the Egyptians... didn't..." She catches her chin on her palm. Her elbow is braced on the table. The chopsticks drop to the plate.

She's asleep.

He gets up from the table, carries her into the bedroom. Good thing there aren't too many steps. When she wakes up, he'll tell her she doesn't need to go anywhere. Or bother finding some place else to stay.

Nice to have company around the place for a while.

She doesn't take up much space.

#

"Why the _hell_ didn't anyone tell me what the Stargate looked like? Didn't you think I'd be _interested_?" Dani's voice crackles with not-so-suppressed rage.

Monday morning.

She and O'Neill and Langford are standing on the floor of the converted missile silo that now houses the Stargate. Above them, in the glass-walled Control Booth, Barbara Shaw's team of technicians monitor the artifact.

"You've only been here three days." Langford is holding her ground. Point to Langford. O'Neill glances over and meets Kawalsky's eyes. Kawalsky has his game face on, but he's grinning inside. O'Neill can tell.

"Five," Dani snaps. "I got here Wednesday. This is Monday. That's five." She walks up the ramp to the Stargate itself. Traces the nearest glyph. "I don't see chisel marks."

"You won't find any," Langford says, walking up the ramp to join her. "There's no evidence of manufacture at all."

"That's ridiculous. Look at it. It's obviously an artifact."

"Certainly. And what's more ... it moves."

"It moves?"

"The inner ring -- the one with the symbols -- rotates. They lock into place at the trapezoidal red crystals, and the whole place shakes when we power it up, but we can't get it to work."

"Catherine, you aren't making any sense."

It looks like he isn't going to get to see a catfight, O'Neill decides regretfully. Dani's got her preoccupied look on again. The one that tells him she's no longer seeing people, just ideas.

"It's not just an artifact. It's a machine of some kind. Dr. Shaw's team has managed to build a computer interface. We can match up the six symbols inside the cartouche and on the ring with six of the red crystals when we supply enough power to rotate the ring, but nothing happens. We're hoping that if you can translate the symbols, we'll have a better understanding of what we're trying to do."

Dani turns around and actually stares at Langford for a long moment. "You're trying to make alien technology -- it's _alien technology_ \-- work _before_ you've read the instruction book? Without having any idea of what it's supposed to do?" 

"Well, the hieroglyphs referred to the ring as a 'Door to Heaven'--"

"They called it a _Stargate_ , Catherine, not a 'Door to Heaven.' A gateway to the stars, whatever that means. Left in Egypt ten thousand years ago by _aliens_. That means ... _aliens_." Whatever point Dani's trying to make, she gives up on trying to get it across. "Are there pictures of all these symbols?"

"We have them on tape."

"I need a copy. And still pictures." She walks halfway down the ramp. Langford follows her.

"You can take them off the tape," Langford says.

"Good." Dani looks back at the Stargate. "You people are all crazy. You know that, don't you?" She walks back up the ramp again, apparently having forgotten that they're here. Finds another of the symbols. Runs her hands over it.

"Thank you for bringing her here." Langford has walked over to him, watching Dani conduct a Braille search of the Stargate. "You were right, Colonel O'Neill. I backed the wrong archaeologist."

He'll have to have a word with that jackass Samuels. Langford wasn't necessarily supposed to hear about that.

"When Dr. Meyers read some of Dr. Jackson's papers, he thought she might be able to help us with the coverstone translation. I'd gone to Chicago to see her, but she'd already left the Institute and nobody knew where she was. I hated the thought of having made the trip for nothing. When I spoke to Dr. Jordan, he suggested I might consider her former colleague for the post, since he was familiar with her work. Dr. Gardner's credentials were excellent. His work was impeccable. He certainly implied that he was entirely familiar with Dr. Jackson's theories and lines of research."

"He was," O'Neill says. "Too bad he didn't tell you about them. You might already have this thing working."

"You like her, don't you?" Langford says abruptly.

They aren't going there. "Don't you have a tape to get?"

#

It takes O'Neill another half hour to pry Dani away from the Stargate, but he reminds her that General West wants to meet her.

"Why?" she asks suspiciously.

"He pays for all this." That's not exactly true, but he _does_ write the reports that persuade the Pentagon to keep paying for it.

She looks horrified. "Papers. I was supposed to sign ... papers." She tries to bolt in the direction of her office. He grabs her arm.

"First you see the General and tell him how thrilled you are to be here. Then... papers."

"But, Jack! I'm not dressed! And I'm not working here!" 

All evidence to the contrary.

"Because of the--"

"Dani. Walk."

He gets her up to General West's office. There's only a short wait in the outer office. Samuels glares. O'Neill smiles blandly. Samuels phone rings, and he's forced to admit that the General can see Dr. Jackson now. O'Neill herds her inside. She manages to shake General West's hand, and the introductory interview is going smoothly until the General asks her how she's doing so far. Then they're off. Because she starts to explain. In detail.

"--and I'm sure you'll cover all this in a nice detailed report for the General, right, Dr. Jackson?" he says, heading her off somewhere between 'protoplasm' and 'linguini' -- or at least that's what it sounds like at the speed she's going.

General West looks relieved.

"Um, well, sure, but basically, you see, I--"

"And right now don't you think you'd better get those papers signed?" he asks, ruthlessly cutting her off again. The mention of the mysterious 'papers' -- he has no idea what they are -- finally derails her completely. 

"Yes?" she suggests.

"Why don't you take care of that, Colonel?" General West says.

"Yes, sir."

"Generals don't actually need all that much information," he tells her, walking her down to her office. That simple maxim is the star he's steered by ever since he took his service oath; it's what he owes his bird to.

"He asked me," she says. She sounds like a sulky child.

"He didn't really want to know."

"Then why did he ask me?" she demands, still sulking.

"He wanted to hear that everything was going fine and you were going to be able to translate the Coverstone."

"God!" She stops dead and spins around to face him. "Jack, I am _never_ going to be able to translate that! It isn't language, it isn't an alphabet- It was left here by _aliens!_ How could anybody translate that? How?"

"Figure something out."

She spins around again and stalks off. He follows.

The mysterious 'papers' are at the bottom of several piles on her desk. A briefing book (classified) on Project Giza. Orientation packet (classified). Employment contract. Payment vouchers. Travel vouchers. Meal vouchers. Transportation vouchers. All the forms the military deems it necessary to have in order to hire and pay someone.

He flips through the employment contract. It looks like they've just rolled over Gardner's, so she'll be receiving the same compensation. Seventy-five grand per year payable upon project completion should the project run less than one fiscal year or every twelve months at the start of each subsequent budget year should the project run multiple years or yadda yadda compensated expenses yadda prorated drawing account yadda. A decent amount. 

"I don't have time to read all this," she says in frustration.

"Don't, then. Just sign them." 

She groans. Starts looking for a pen. Gets distracted. Settles down in her chair to look at something else and forgets he's here. He doesn't bother trying to get her attention again. He's a Colonel. There are easier ways to do this. On his way out of her office he finds Kawalsky. Tells him he wants Dr. Jackson's signed paperwork on his desk by the end of today if Kawalsky has to forge her signature on the documents himself.

#

Kawalsky has the signed forms on O'Neill's desk by 1600. Dani now has -- or soon will have -- a government car and an apartment (not that she has anything to put in an apartment), and will receive compensation for her relocation as well as the first of her (backdated) _per diem_ payments, which aren't meant to cover anything more than incidental expenses. O'Neill will make sure his aide gets a bank account opened for her, and that Kawalsky makes sure she doesn't bury the checks in the pile of papers on her desk. Other things he'll take care of for himself. Making sure she eats and sleeps. Dragging her out of here by force every two or three days should take care of that.

It turns out to actually come down to about that. Because despite her insistence that the Coverstone is untranslatable and the Stargate glyphs insoluble, Dani works two and three days at a stretch, stealing catnaps at her desk. O'Neill gets into the habit of collecting her (those times he can get her attention) and taking her home overnight. On Friday, for the weekend. Though several folders of work come along as well, and by Sunday afternoon she's circling obsessively around the problem again. If willpower could make the Stargate work, she'd have it working now.

It's going to take more than that.

#

"You've certainly managed an amazing improvement in Colonel O'Neill's behavior." Catherine is in Dani's office, so Dani supposes it must be three o'clock again.

"Me?" she says warily.

Catherine smiles, and sips her tea. It's become a habit of hers; afternoon tea in Dani's office. Dani suspects she does it just to get Dani to come out of the Coverstone Lab. Dani hates leaving the Lab -- as much as she likes Catherine -- because she suspects her answers are in there. They have to be, because they can't be anywhere else. They're not in her books, or Catherine's books, or in any of the on-line databases she's scoured with her new free unlimited computer access. 

Dani hadn't expected to like Catherine Langford. She thought Catherine would be arrogant and territorial about the Stargate and the Coverstone, and she isn't. It's only because of Catherine that Project Giza exists at all. She fought to get the project started all the way back in the 1970s -- the Giza artifacts had been mothballed in an armory in Washington since the 1940s for some reason; Catherine isn't entirely sure why. She wants to know what the glyphs are and what the Stargate does -- or at least, how to make it do it. She's wanted to know for over half a century. That's a long time. But nothing Dani can find matches the symbols on the Stargate. Nothing even comes close.

"You," Catherine says, smiling. "You weren't here when we first got him. I was sure he was going to shut the Project down and send us all packing. Very unpleasant."

Dani sips her coffee and says nothing. She doesn't want to disagree with Catherine, and she certainly can't agree. She likes Jack. Quite an embarrassment of riches, having Jack and the Stargate both. There's a cryptic message hidden in that somewhere. Feast or famine. Gift horses.

"However, as I say, things have changed," Catherine continues briskly. "You have a good influence on people."

It's certainly the first time she's ever heard that, and she's nearly thirty. Her influence is usually considered to be something completely different. 'Degrading' was one of the words Simon used. "Maybe he wasn't happy," she says cautiously, meaning Jack. She thinks of the photos of the woman and child in Jack's living room. She wonders when he got divorced. If it was just before Catherine met him, the divorce might account for it. Especially if he doesn't get to visit his son. 

"Perhaps he wasn't," Catherine agrees neutrally.

#

Third weekend in Colorado. Surprising how fast Dani Jackson's become a ... habit. This Friday O'Neill doesn't have to go and find her. She's waiting at his office door at end-of-shift. Wide-awake and jittering with nervous energy. Way too much coffee. No files this time, either.

He stops at the store on the way home. Steaks. Chili makings. It amused him when he discovered that he's actually better in the kitchen than she is, but he'd pointed out that she's spent most of her life in Student Housing. He already knows -- from the file they're slowly accumulating, not from her -- that she has no family. They haven't had a chance to do a full background check on her yet -- that takes months -- but it isn't as if she goes _anywhere_ by herself. And they're working on it.

She insists on paying for the groceries. Her accounts are set up now, so she has money. He grills on the deck while she watches, bundled up in one of his coats, although it isn't that cold. Probably ought to take her clothes-shopping this weekend, at least somewhere that she can buy a coat of her own.

"Maybe later we'll go up on the roof. Look at the stars," he says. "Should be good viewing weather tonight."

Sara gave him Charlie's telescope. It was the only thing of Charlie's he asked for. Charlie always loved looking at the stars. When O'Neill bought this place he set it up on the roof. He'd go up there with a bottle and spend hours staring through the scope, pretending that nothing existed but Out There. Shutting the world out. Now he's going to let someone else in. Strange feeling. He tells himself it doesn't count. Dani will be gone as soon as Project Giza shuts down. Or Washington gives up and pulls the plug.

"Cold," she says, shivering.

"I've got warmer coats," he offers.

"I hope so," she says feelingly. She looks up at the sky, even though it's still day and there's nothing to see. "Have you ever been to Egypt, Jack? The stars, in the deep desert, at night. When you look up, they're so close, so bright, you could almost touch them." There's a longing in her voice. Almost homesickness. Maybe Egypt is home for her.

"Cold in the desert at night, too," he says. He almost froze at night on the ground in Iraq.

"Sure," she says, sounding a little surprised that he'd know. "But you dress for it. And it's a dry cold."

He nods without saying anything. Dry is always better than wet. Survival training taught him that.

After they eat, he suggests a game of chess in front of the fire until it's dark enough -- meaning late enough -- for good viewing, but they don't really get very far. For once, Dani's mind doesn't seem to be on the Stargate, and she's thinking of something a little more hands-on than chess. They've gotten a chance to get to know each other in bed by now. It's not that he's looking for a commitment, and he doesn't know what Dani's looking for either. But there's comfort in the familiar, and that can be ... nice.

More than nice. Good.

It's been a long time since there was something good in his life. It feels a little strange. But here they are.

#

As a bed-partner, O'Neill's found Dani to be eager, cheerful, and blessedly free of mixed signals. In bed she's either curled up on her side of the mattress sound asleep, or conspicuously waiting for him to make the first move so she can make the second one. It makes him wonder (again) how hard Gardner slapped her down, and he's reminded himself more than once that Dani's won and Gardner's lost and she doesn't need him to fight her battles for her. Tonight she's a little different. Not aggressive exactly. More like she's finally decided she's sure of her reception. It's not as if she's really been _awake_ for that many of the nights she's spent here in the past two weeks -- or that she's spent many of them here -- but enough that they're past the awkwardness that comes when you know it's going to be more than a one night stand. And from what General West's been passing on to him from Washington, she won't still be here by the time they'd hit the next speed bump. Giza has ninety days at the outside before the Pentagon pulls the plug. Right now that's Need To Know, and the civilian side doesn't need to know. Sufficient unto the day.

Everything starts out very promisingly, and continues pleasantly in that way for some time, although there's something just a little off. It's not that Dani's preoccupied; if anything, she's the opposite. He hasn't gotten this much _hurry up right now_ from her since that first night back in New York. He wonders -- just before he sets the thought aside for later -- if she's given up on the Stargate problem, because she certainly seems to have a lot of available energy.

She's right with him; he thinks he can actually _feel_ her paying attention. Heels tucked into the backs of his thighs, arms wrapped around his back. Her breath has that little catch in it that it gets when she's getting close. And all of a sudden she stiffens in his arms, arching and going as rigid as if she's just been electroshocked.

_"Oh-my-god--"_ she gasps in a voice he's never heard her use before. As if she's just seen God -- or been stabbed in the gut. Her fingers dig into his back, and her entire body shudders. It sends him over the edge before he can register that something might not be quite right here. And he thinks he's either -- somehow -- hurt her, or -- maybe -- that she's having the best sex of her life.

Neither one, actually.

"Jack! They aren't letters! They're _constellations_!"

She kisses his cheek while he's still trying to drag his brain back into something like operating condition. She's switched gears and hit the ground running, and O'Neill's not sure she's really aware of where she is and what she was doing two minutes ago. He barely manages to get the two of them untangled before she's out of the bed and running off to the living room. He rolls over on his back and stares up at the ceiling.

What the hell?

By the time he puts on a robe and follows, she's tearing through his bookshelves.

"Star maps! Do you have anything with star maps -- constellations?" she demands when she sees him. 

He pulls a book down -- top shelf -- and hands it to her. Goes into the kitchen to make coffee. Hey, at least she was seeing stars of some kind. 

She follows him in a few minutes later -- still naked -- clutching the book to her chest. She's radiant, like a kid at Christmas, and it makes O'Neill smile. He knew from Day One that Dani was a very special lady, and the ordinary rules don't apply. She didn't mean to be rude. She simply forgot he was there when her flash of inspiration hit. Thinking back, it was probably circling the runway all afternoon and evening. He'll recognize the warning signs next time. 

"Jack, I've found it -- I've found it! I _have!_ Look, it's all here -- they're not letters -- it's not a symbol-driven language at all! They're constellations! Jack, it's a map! It's-- It's-- I think I know what it does, now! We have to get back to the Mountain! I can make it _work! I can make your Stargate work!_ "

She throws her arms around him, dropping the book simply because she doesn't remember she's holding it. She's laughing and crying and shaking all at the same time. Kisses him thoroughly, but O'Neill's not sure she really sees him. He puts his arms around her. She holds him tightly, weeping with joy and relief.

She's done it. In two weeks she's solved what had Langford's team stalled for more than eighteen months.

"You want to go back like that?" he asks, sliding his hand down her back. He always imagines he can feel the tattoo, even though he can't.

"What?"

"Clothes, Dani. You might want to put on some ... clothes."

#

The six symbols inside the cartouche turn out to be a location. Six points define any location in three-dimensional space. The seventh symbol -- the one outside the cartouche -- is the Point of Origin symbol, the one that tells the Stargate where they're coming _from_. Because the Stargate is exactly that. A star... gate. A gate to another world. If they have the seventh symbol -- she says -- the Stargate will engage.

In her presentation to the Pentagon pencil pushers, Dani's a combination of oblivious, arrogant and terrified -- and still giving the brass too goddamned much information that they just don't need. Fortunately she's also talking so fast they probably can't figure out what the hell she's saying. They're impressed. They're even more impressed that the white elephant in NORAD's basement they've poured a couple of billion dollars into is finally going to _do_ something. 

Meyers complains that the seventh symbol on the Coverstone isn't anywhere on the Stargate, and Dani just about decks him over that little dust-up -- and then matches up the Coverstone symbol to its opposite number on the Stargate, and she's right again. This time, when Shaw dials, her team gets a lock. The Stargate finally does what it's supposed to do, and it's damned impressive: spins, lights up, sprays out a jet of ... something ... and then the middle of it is full of something that looks like water. Shaw's going on about event horizons, so O'Neill supposes it isn't. Once everyone's sure that nothing's going to just _explode_ Shaw sends the remote probe from MIT through -- there goes another three-quarters of a billion bucks -- and when it sends back pictures, they can all see that there's a Stargate on the other side. A building. A controller a whole lot smaller than theirs. Breathable air.

And that means O'Neill's mission is finally a 'go' -- assuming, of course, that someone can find the seven symbols on the other side to bring them home again. According to Shaw, you have to turn it on at the end you need to enter from, and not just walk through when it's opened somewhere else. And the address for the planet (Meyers is calling it Abydos; he and Dani have a spat about that, too, but Meyers has seniority and wins that one) is -- obviously -- not the same as the address for Earth.

Dani's sure she can find the -- for lack of a better term -- return address -- on the other side. Since the address for "Abydos" was located near the Stargate at Giza, it stands to reason the return address will be located near the Abydos Stargate. All they have to do is find the seven symbols and punch them in.

O'Neill can tell how badly she wants to go. If anybody deserves to take that trip, it's her. But she doesn't know what his real mission is. And she hasn't seen the alien skeletons. He's not taking someone he cares for the way he's starting to think he cares about Dani -- especially a civilian someone -- into a situation that could go hot at any moment. So when the question comes up, he tells General West that if his mission requires the services of an Egyptologist -- as it seems to -- he'll take Meyers.

#

"How could you do this to me? _Jack!_ " Dani runs after him , out of the Control Room and down the hallway. She doesn't care if anyone sees. Right now she's too angry.

"Decision's made, Dani. Subject's closed."

"Oh, no, it isn't. It's just opening! You can't take Gary! He's an idiot!"

Jack stops. She catches up. "Well, you're just going to have to teach him what he needs to know."

"In _three days_? How can I do that?"

"Find a way. Because I'm not taking you to Abydos." 

Jack sounds as if he's angry with her and it isn't _fair_. She did what he wanted and what Catherine wanted -- he ought to be happy. " _Why not_?" she wails, knowing that she sounds like a spoiled child and unable to help it. "I opened the damned Stargate for you--"

"And your government thanks you." He lowers his voice, takes a step toward her. "Dani, this isn't the time. Maybe next time. Just get Meyers ready for the mission, okay?"

"You'll take me next time?" she asks, knowing she's really pleading. There's something he's not telling her -- she knows him well enough by now to know that -- but she doesn't know what it is.

"You know that isn't my decision. But when we come back, I'll ask."

She takes a deep breath. It hurts to be so close and know she can't go. Abydos -- it should have been called Khefiu and named the Khefiu Mission, since they were dealing with artifacts from Giza, but Meyers is not only a moron, but a stubborn moron -- is an alien civilization with its roots in Ancient Egypt. It's proof of all her theories. She _has_ to see it. But she already knows that Jack's made up his mind. General West said it's going to be a quick recon mission. Only a few hours. The return address should be within a few hundred yards of the Abydos (Khefiu) Stargate. If she coaches him enough, even _Gary Meyers_ should be able to find the return address.

"You're taking Charlie, right?" she asks. 

Jack looks puzzled at the question. "Kawalsky? Sure. He'll be on the team that goes."

"Right." She likes Charlie Kawalsky. He brings her candy bars and makes her laugh. She trusts him to keep Jack safe. She forces herself to nod. Giving up. Giving in. "I'll start getting Gary ready."

"Good." Jack smiles at her, looking relieved. "For a few moments there I was afraid I was going to have to sleep on the couch tonight."

"Don't push your luck," she tells him.

#

Three days later, she and Catherine see them off -- Jack, Charlie, Lou Ferretti, Chris Freeman, Deke Brown, Carl Mankiewicz, Gian Porro, and Gary Meyers -- as they walk through the Stargate and vanish. Jack brought them all (except Gary of course; why is he insisting on taking Gary when he can't stand him?) over to his house last night for a farewell party, and she found out that he'd known Charlie and Lou from before. She actually expected something rowdy and destructive, but they really didn't drink all that much. They'd been surprised to see her there -- girl at a boy's night out -- and Jack introduced her (to everybody but Charlie of course) as their travel agent. They tried to shock her. She didn't shock. The gathering bore, she decided, a strange family resemblance to the Legions gathering the night before battle to share the Victory Cup.

She was right. Leaving (being left) is a bitch, even though it doesn't seem to be a _permanent_ kind of leaving (not yet), because Jack has left her the keys to his truck and his house (and also his ATM card and the code). He told her it was 'just in case,' though the mission is supposed to be a simple there-and-back-again to look around and find the return symbols. In that case, part of Dani wonders, why is Jack and his team they taking so much equipment? Because it's an alien planet? Or because Jack didn't -- couldn't -- tell her everything?

When he comes back will he tell her more? Or will they say their real goodbyes? Because her part in Project Giza -- they'll have to rename it Project Stargate now -- is pretty much over. She's translated the Coverstone. They're going to pay her -- not just the lavish government _per diem_ , but her actual fee -- which -- she's finally looked at her contract -- is monstrous. She'll have no excuse for being here any more. 

Unless, when he comes back, Jack can keep his half-made promise to take her to ... Khefiu.

#

The Abydos (Khefiu) Mission doesn't come back in two hours. They haven't checked in after three hours, or after eight. They're overdue. They're in trouble. Major Samuels doesn't give the civilian consultants as much leeway as Jack did. Now that the Stargate is functioning, the entire civilian staff is ordered to leave the Base at the end of their working day. No arguments.

No appeal.

Reluctantly she drives to Jack's house -- the truck doesn't handle that much differently than a Jeep -- and goes in.

It's lonely sleeping alone in his bed.

#

By the end of the first month that the Abydos (Khefiu) Mission has been lost, Dani's pretty sure she's pregnant. She and Jack were careful. Well, every night but the first night, and then they were ... mostly careful. But it looks like 'mostly careful' wasn't good enough. Unless this is just a metabolic disorder brought on by sheer nerves.

She goes to work every morning and home -- she thinks of it as home -- every night by the clock, continuing her analysis of the Coverstone and the Stargate symbols, writing her final reports, trying to figure out why Jack and his team haven't come back. That's not much of a stretch. She _knows_ why they didn't come back. They didn't come back because Gary Meyers is stupid. Gary was supposed to find the return address that would let them use the Dial Home Device to come back. And -- obviously -- didn't. Gary Meyers screwed the pooch, and now they're all lost on ... Khefiu.

#

Dani and Catherine stand on the floor of the Embarkation Room. Barbara is up in the Control Room presiding over the technicians. The entire room shakes as the Stargate engages, turning the room a hellish, lovely, crystalline blue. This is the first part of the back-up plan. People can't travel the 'wrong way' through a Stargate, but radio waves can. Jack knows they'll turn on the Stargate from Earth after thirty days. He'll radio in if he can. If they don't hear from him this time, General West will do it again in another thirty days.

And after that they'll give up. Write off the Abydos (Khefiu) Mission. Say Jack, Gary, and all Jack's team are dead.

Dani stands watching the shimmering pool of light.

There's no radio transmission. They wait for as long as they can keep the Stargate open -- a little over half an hour. When it closes, the room seems very dark. Damn Jack for refusing to take her. She wonders, now, if the outcome would have been any different if they hadn't been sleeping together.

She could have gotten them home. She could.

"Colonel O'Neill is a very resourceful man, my dear. I am certain that he is alive and well on the other side."

Dani looks up to find Catherine watching her. 

"He just can't get back," Dani answers. Unconsciously her hand drifts to her stomach. And the two of them have a baby on the way -- or they might -- and at the end of next month Project Giza closes down and Jack is gone and she's out of a job and _what is she going to do?_

"I'm sure you'll think of something," Catherine says kindly. "After all, you opened the Stargate."

And if Jack had only taken her with him, she could have gotten them home. 

She still can.

#

She has a month. It takes her every minute to prepare. She finally nerves herself up to use one of those home test kits and discovers that yeah, she's _definitely_ pregnant. She isn't sure whether to be pleased or upset, so she settles for scared. She crams her brain with constellations, refreshes everything she's ever known on hieroglyphs. Despairs of taking the notes she needs with her until she hits on the idea of writing them on silk scarves with indelible markers. The result will serve double duty: notes, and protection from the sun and the sand. Assuming there's sun and sand on the other side.

Aspirin. Caffeine pills. Antihistamines. As much of a basic first aid kit as she can smuggle through, because when she stands on the Gate Room floor she has to look as if she's wearing her regular civilian clothes, nothing more. She won't be able to bring a single weapon -- not even a knife -- through the security checkpoints into the Mountain. A good compass will be vital. Fortunately she still spends half her days crawling around the floor of the Coverstone Lab and dresses like it: workboots, work shirt, and cargo pants: the most presentable of her clothes from New York aside from her interview suit. She can add a photojournalist's vest to that without anyone noticing anything out of the ordinary. It will cover up the layers of scarves wrapped around her body.

A couple of blank workbooks and something to write with. Well, she always has something in her hands. Nobody will notice.

Sunglasses. She has a pair made to her prescription. She's glad Jack left her his ATM card, though at the time she thought it was a little reckless, because she needs it now. Setting this up is costing her more than she has, since the final payment for her services hasn't come through yet, even though she's saved most of the _per diem_ she's been given ($250 a day, and what does she have to spend it on, since it's for food, travel, and expenses, and she isn't traveling, has no expenses, and they're feeding her anyway), and there are his basic household expenses on top of that. She's been paying his bills -- mortgage, water, phone, sewer, gas and electric -- for coming up on two months now. For that matter, it costs her eighty dollars every time she fills up the truck.

She thinks carefully and writes a letter for Catherine. She'll leave it in her office, with Jack's keys and his ATM card, where Catherine will find it once everyone stops screaming. She doesn't want anything to happen to Jack's things. Though they'll be right back just as soon as she finds what Gary missed.

They _will._

#

The night before the last activation of the Stargate Dani can't sleep at all. That morning it takes her a long time to dress. There are scarves to wind and tape around her shins and thighs and torso. Each one is interleaved with packets of pills, packets of sugar, packets of tea, packets of salt, of electrolyte solution. She refuses to admit to herself that she's not packing for there-and-back-again, she's packing as much as she can carry.

When she's done with the scarves, she puts on her bra, and then carefully shrugs into her improvised canteen. Water will be her most vital necessity, and she can't walk into the Embarkation Room with a gallon of water. The flat plastic waterbag on her back -- duct-taped to the inside of a t-shirt she purposely bought several sizes too small -- will only hold seventy ounces of water, but she can't conceal anything bigger. She worries, because that isn't even enough water for one full day in a desert climate. She pulls on a baggy t-shirt over it to hide its outline.

Cargo pants, their pockets filled with compass, Power Bars, sunglasses in a hard-sided case, Sharpies. Work shirt. She looks just a little portly -- not from pregnancy, not yet, she's only ten weeks along -- but from all her hidden luggage. Nobody will notice. Nobody ever noticed Dr. Jackson. Only Jack, and now she's got to save him, because nobody else will.

Boots. She spent three hundred dollars on a top of the line pair of desert hiking boots, shuddering at the expense, but if she has to walk, she needs to be able to walk far and well. She's not sure why they're all assuming that Khefiu is a desert. They haven't seen anything but the other Stargate, and that's inside some kind of temple structure. They're all just extrapolating from the fact that everything they've seen seems to be related to Egyptian culture. Still, the hiking boots will serve her well in any climate but snow.

Vest. Spare socks, sunblock, candy bars, toothbrush, eyedrops, magnifying glass, cleaning brush -- because in the middle of all this, there's the fact that she _is_ an archaeologist, and this _is_ about finding something. Which may have been buried, or hidden, or defaced. A boonie hat, which can be rolled into a tight cylinder and stowed into one of the vest's many pockets. She's going to assume a desert until she knows otherwise. And you don't fool around with a desert. No flashlight, but a tiny candle lantern and candles, because Barbara said there was oxygen on the other side, so a candle will burn, and candles will last longer than batteries. Matches. Lots of them.

She's ready.

#

It's two months since Jack, Gary, and Jack's team stepped through the Stargate. Project Giza is about to open the Stargate for the last time. Dani stands on the Embarkation Room floor next to Catherine. She's holding a stack of books casually under one arm. It isn't really obvious that they're all blank journals.

"Good luck, Dani," Catherine says, as Barbara starts the dialing sequence up in the Control Room. Dani feels something hard being pressed into her palm. She's surprised, but Catherine obviously doesn't want anyone to see what she's done. Dani slips whatever-it-is into the empty side pocket of her vest without speaking. The room shakes. The light gushes out of the Stargate, then stabilizes. She runs forward.

She hears shouting behind her and what might even be the sound of a gunshot. She doesn't have time to be afraid of what will happen to her when she hits the event horizon, because she knows everything depends on getting there before Barbara shuts the Stargate down. She closes her eyes a few steps away so she won't hesitate.

The shock of cold makes her scream. She's drawing breath to scream again when it occurs to her that she has to have made it. She's through. Nauseated, freezing, shaking -- she's grateful now that she was too nervous to eat anything for breakfast or she'd be puking it up now. But she can't _see._ She's blind. 

It takes her almost two minutes to remember that the remote probe had lights. By then she's starting to warm up and stop shaking, though her clothes are damp because they were covered with frost. At least she's warm enough so that she can hunt through her vest and find the lantern and the matches. One candlepower doesn't seem like a lot, but it's enough -- once her eyes adjust -- to show her the Stargate and the mushroom-shaped object that Barbara called a "Dial Home Device". Stacked up at its base are a few cases of equipment belonging to Jack's mission. Some discarded glow-sticks. The remote probe from MIT. It's still here. On the floor are some expended cigarette-butts.

"Jack?" she calls, setting the lantern down on one of the cases.

Silence. He isn't here.

The air, she realizes belatedly, is full of fine dust. She starts to cough. She strips to the point that she can free her canteen, peels it loose from the cloth (and the duct-tape), and drinks. After she drinks, she strips further to get at a scarf, and unwinds a layer of silk and ties it over her nose and mouth. When she's dressed again, she tucks the packets of sugar and tea that were packed into the scarf into her vest. When she does, she encounters a lump. The thing Catherine gave her at the last minute. Pulls it out. It's something -- hard, disk, beaded cord -- wrapped in a carefully-folded lace-edged linen handkerchief. She sets her lantern down on the "Dial Home Device" and unfolds the handkerchief carefully.

It's the Eye of Ra. She holds it up, wondering. The soft gold glows in the candlelight.

Catherine -- a child of ten -- was on the original expedition that unearthed the Stargate and its coverstone at Giza. There were many items found at the site, among them a golden pendant inscribed with the Eye of Ra, strung on a cord of gold and lapis beads. Catherine has worn it every time Dani has seen her. She told Dani once that she never takes it off.

Catherine gave it to her. Why? There's a scrap of paper still folded in the handkerchief. Dani unfolds it carefully. It says: _"For luck. Catherine."_

Catherine guessed what she was going to do.

Dani blinks hard. Tears come easily these days. She takes a deep breath. At least she has Catherine's blessing for this. It makes her feel better, though she's not sure why. She takes the pendant and ties it around her neck. Folds the paper and the handkerchief away. Then she goes to see why the air is so dusty.

She's trying not to think about why Jack isn't here. She needs the symbols to open the Stargate for home, and she knew within moments of her arrival that she wouldn't find them close to the Stargate itself. For some reason, here on a planet thousands of light-years away from Earth, there's a perfect copy of the Great Pyramid of Giza. And the Great Pyramid contained no inscriptions at all.

That there's a copy of the Great Pyramid here also means that aliens land here, or used to. There were landing pads at Giza, and (ten thousand years ago) they knew the Stargate symbols for here -- the planet Gary named Abydos, damn him -- and marked them down. This pyramid looks like it was built yesterday. Does that mean it's in current use? 

It doesn't matter. If there are landing pads here -- _a_ landing pad anyway -- there must be people here, or have been people once, and they must have written the address for Earth down somewhere. She just has to find it. And Jack. And Charlie, Lou, Chris, Deke, Carl, Gian, and even Gary -- assuming they haven't killed him. 

There's more evidence, elsewhere in the pyramid, that Jack's team has been here, and even camped for a while. Food wrappers, mostly, though there are also a few abandoned pieces of equipment. But they aren't here now (obviously). Dani scavenges through the abandoned equipment, looking for anything she can use. There's a tin plate and cup, and an empty ammunition chest, which she uses to unpack her own supplies into.

There's also a radio. A big one. She goes over to it and turns it on, but it's dead. When she shifts it -- it's heavy, seventy pounds, she thinks Kawalsky said at the party; he was complaining about the equipment list before Jack shut him up -- she hears things slip around inside. It's broken.

Dani knows they have small radios; she saw them when they left. Will the little ones work without this one? Is this the one they need to radio through the Stargate? She knows how to build a catapult, an arbalest, and a trebuchet, but the technology of the modern world is largely a mystery to her. She investigates further, and realizes they've left behind more than she first thought. Two blankets. An empty canteen. A backpack. She opens it, looking for clues. It has a set of playing cards at the bottom. Socks. Foot powder. Somebody left a flashlight, too, and the batteries still work. She blows out her lantern and uses it instead. Finally she reaches the entrance of the temple. The sky outside the entrance is black with sand. Sandstorm. A bad one. Nobody could travel through that. She breathes a sigh of relief. She was worried -- though she wouldn't admit it -- because no one was waiting at the Stargate, but now she sees why. _Jack is all right_ , she tells herself, dizzy with relief. _He just isn't here because of the sandstorm._

But if he isn't here ... where is he? And why?

She turns and walks back into the temple. Surveys the scene. Four men -- she notes the sleeping arrangements and the pattern of litter -- entered the temple. She knows they entered, not exited, because of the disbursement of equipment.

They set up camp in the shelter of the pillars, but in a location where they could keep a direct eye on the door. It wasn't the most sheltered location in the temple. Maybe the positioning was a soldier thing? Were they being followed? Or worrying about it? She can't know. She _does_ know that they brought the radio with them. They were moving in haste, because the radio is broken, possibly by the speed with which they transported it? If they were fleeing a living enemy -- one who could and was following them -- they would have moved further into the temple, she thinks, and there would be evidence of a fight. Probably, in that case, they were running from weather conditions. Another sandstorm like this one?

Four men camped here. Eight came through the Stargate. Where were the other four when this scenario was being played out? Wherever they were, they weren't definitely dead, because as soon as weather conditions permitted, the four who'd come here left -- to search for the others, or to join them. They haven't returned. And they left valuable -- vital -- survival equipment behind.

She picks up the abandoned canteen and stares at it. Who abandons a canteen in a desert? Someone who's crazy, someone who's dying, or someone who knows he isn't going to need it for some other reason. To which category did the owner of this canteen belong? Gary doesn't have any real desert experience. Jack knows the desert. At least a little. Dani doesn't know how much experience the others have with deserts, because what they do is classified and none of them told her. She takes her gleanings back to the Stargate Chamber and carefully unpacks her gear by the light of the flashlight. She's glad to have the backpack. Everything but the blankets fits into it, and she can tie them on beneath.

She looks through the crates on the sled left behind. Or rather, she looks through one of them, since the other is locked and she can't get it open. The one she can open holds enough rifles to start a small war. She counts them. Twelve. Plus ammo. Plus grenades. Or ... almost twice as many guns as soldiers. And that's just one box. There were at least four sleds that went through, and they were all piled with boxes.

What did Jack expect to find here?

And how long, she wonders now, did he _really_ expect to be here? She's a good judge of character, because she's needed to be in order to survive. Jack O'Neill is a sensible, methodical, practical, man. Yet he gave a woman he'd known for barely two weeks his car keys, his house keys, and full access to his bank accounts before he left. Certainly she wouldn't abuse the privilege, but -- even if he knew that -- it was certainly an odd thing to do if you expected to be back in just a few hours. Or a few days.

Of course, Dani knows by now that Jack plans for all contingencies. Maybe this was one of his 'just in case' scenarios. Just in case Gary couldn't get them back. Which Gary couldn't. But if Jack really _was_ planning to come right back, why did the Abydos (Khefiu) Mission bring three sleds full of gear? And so many guns? What were they going to shoot here? Every answer Dani can come up with only covers half the facts she has.

She thinks she'd like to take a rifle with her when she goes, even though she's never fired a gun in her life (Mama said 'later'; Nick said guns were for fascists and criminals). She'll think about it later, make up her mind later. Right now, her priorities are simple.

Find water.

Find Jack and the others.

Find the way home.

#

This has been a real sweetheart of an op. A year ago -- hell, six months ago -- O'Neill wouldn't have minded, but now he'd like to get back to his girl, and find out if she still _is_ his girl after he wouldn't let her come along on this suicide mission.

If she had, would it have made a difference? Meyers says no, there wasn't anything here to find. O'Neill's not so sure. Gardner said the Coverstone couldn't be translated, and Dani did that. Maybe she could have found them the way home, too. He's never going to know. And he's never going to get home to his girl. She's probably given up waiting, anyway. He and his team have been here two months now.

Meyers says the village is called Megiddo. They found it pretty much by accident, following tracks in the sand that turned out to belong to a giant alien yak. The natives are mining the same stuff the Stargate is built out of, but they won't say why, or for who. Or maybe they would if any of his people could talk to them, but they can't. Meyers thinks they may speak Ancient Egyptian. Apparently Meyers doesn't. Meyers speaks French. French, Meyers told O'Neill indignantly, is the international language of Archaeology. In that case, O'Neill supposes, these people ought to speak French.

O'Neill's pretty sure Dani speaks Ancient Egyptian. In fact, he knows she does -- she said so. But she isn't here, thank God, so he and the boys are learning the language one agonizing noun at a time, the same way they learn the native language everywhere. There's a kid called Skaara who helps a lot, though O'Neill suspects that Skaara is learning a lot more English than O'Neill is learning Megiddonian. Skaara has a -- sister? -- named Sha're, who keeps flirting with him, but Sha're's father is apparently the chief here, and Mrs. O'Neill did not raise any stupid children. He keeps his hands inside the car at all times and his eyes averted. 

That first night on Abydos was rough. Meyers admitted he couldn't get them home, Mankiewicz blew his cork, O'Neill took Kawalsky and Freeman on a long patrol. He knew he didn't dare leave Meyers alone with the rest of the men, so he brought him along, too. And part of him was entertained at the thought of sweating the pudgy little archaeologist a little. That was how they found the tracks, found the mines, and got to visit scenic Megiddo. While they were there, a sandstorm blew in, trapping them overnight. He'd tried to establish radio contact with Ferretti and the others, but the storm interfered, and later, he'd found out it wasn't just interference. The day after the sandstorm blew itself out, he'd gone back to the pyramid to be told that while the rest of his team was getting to safety, Mankiewicz had dropped the base set most of the way down the staircase that led up to the entrance of the pyramid. 

The field radios are tough, but stone steps are tougher, and just to make things even better, the storm also buried Base Camp, pretty much destroying -- or at least putting out of their reach -- most of the gear they'd brought. That only confirmed what O'Neill had realized during his overnight stay in Megiddo: if Meyers couldn't find them a way home, their only alternative was to go native. 

At least for a while. 

Because his mission -- his _actual_ mission, not the one everyone, even Kawalsky, thinks they were sent on -- was to take a quick look around Abydos for any more of those radioactive lizard men they'd found buried under the Stargate. If he found them, his orders were to send his team home, set the bomb he'd brought as a hostess gift, and run in whatever direction seemed best to him in his professional judgment. If -- also in his professional judgment -- ten thousand years had put an end to the radioactive lizard man menace, he was to return through the Stargate and tell General West that the Pentagon could not only open up Abydos as a new theme park, but go crazy with all those wacky applications for the Stargate the Pentagon is apparently itching to try out.

Only... Without an escape route O'Neill can't send anybody home. And he hasn't seen any radioactive lizard men, so setting off the bomb seems pretty pointless. With the radio gone, he can’t even report to General West to ask for new orders. Only the base set could get through to Cheyenne Mountain; they wouldn't be listening for them back home on any of the tactical frequencies. O'Neill wasn't even sure the hand-sets were capable of getting through.

He'd tried, for as much as that was worth. When the day came for Cheyenne Mountain to do the first of the two fallback activations of the Stargate, he'd gone back to the pyramid and watched the Stargate light itself up, then tried every frequency his radio could put out, all to a resounding silence. In the end, all he could do was watch until the event horizon faded away again. He wasn't sure what he could have said, anyway. _'Having wonderful time, wish you were here'_?

When the Stargate activates for the second and last time, O'Neill isn't there to see it. It's the middle of what turns out to be a 72-hour sandstorm, and there's no way to get to the Stargate. No point anyway. Fortunately, they haven't worn out their welcome in Megiddo. Even more fortunately, there's been no sign of radioactive lizard men. Because gentle friendly peaceful natives or not, O'Neill still has his orders.

And he still has a tactical nuke.

#

Dani spends the rest of the day exploring the Great Pyramid -- which just sounds wacky. First she finds a connecting passage to what turns out to be a series of catacombs, and hopes she's found her answers. But no. Just more questions. The walls are covered with writing, but not the Stargate symbols she needs. It's all hieroglyphics. All about Ra, which is interesting; most sites had at least a little something about the other gods. But this is entirely about Ra: Ra's victories, Ra's power, Ra defeating his enemies, Ra's invincibility, the tortures Ra will inflict on his enemies, Ra's omniscience...

There's something just a little ... fascist about it all. It's kind of spooky. _Great Lord Ra is watching You._

Propaganda. That's what it reminds her of. These aren't prayers or spells or history. They're propaganda. Who is the scribe trying to convince? And of what? And why are none of the other gods mentioned? Enemies of Ra are mentioned constantly here, but they're never named. They're pictured -- and in the stylized form of Egyptian wall paintings, besides -- but she doesn't recognize them. And that's simply impossible. She's Dr. Danielle Jackson -- she's been on first-name terms with the gods of the Ancient Middle East since before she could walk. She knows Ancient Egypt inside out. Either she knows who these figures represent...

...or they aren't Ancient Egyptian -- _Ancient Near Eastern_ \-- gods.

She's so excited that for a moment she forgets she's marooned on an alien planet an unknown number of light years from home with minimal supplies of food and water searching for the missing father of her unborn child. She thinks she's just found _actual proof_ not only that Ra, father of the gods, is an alien, but that there is _an entire pantheon of alien gods,_ some so alien that they aren't even recorded in Earth mythology. 

What she doesn't find is water, a back way out of the pyramid, or any Stargate glyphs.

Every few hours she checks back at the front of the temple, but the sandstorm shows no signs of stopping. It had better stop soon. She only has two quarts of water.

#

Eventually -- after hours of exploring -- Dani's exhausted. Her watch says she's spent the entire day at it. The flashlight died. She's back to candles. She goes back to the Gate Room. She's drunk sparingly, but her water-bag is half-empty. She has to find water in the morning. If there isn't any, she's going to die. She knows that, and tries not to mind. But there _has_ to be water nearby. Nobody builds pyramids out in the middle of nowhere. Except, maybe, space aliens.

Before she sleeps, she takes out one of her blank notebooks and writes a long, careful, detailed description of everything she's seen and done today, and what she thinks of it. Perhaps a future Abydos mission will find it.

#

The change in air pressure is what wakes her. According to her watch, it's well after one in the afternoon. According to what she sees outside, it's just before dawn. The sandstorm has blown itself out. Stars twinkle in the sky, and Dani watches with an utter thrill of disbelief as _three_ moons move across the sky. She's _on an alien planet._ She dresses and goes outside. A long flight of steps leads down from the doorway of the pyramid to the outside world. They're slippery with blown sand, and she moves carefully. All she can see is dune. It's still cool -- in fact, it's cold -- but if she wants to do any exploring, now is the time to do it. She's thirsty, and she wants coffee. She has less than a pint of water left. She'll start by walking around the pyramid to get her bearings.

The pyramid is oriented due east, so that the rising sun shines in directly through the doorway -- at least it shines directly in at certain times of year, probably at the Summer Solstice (whatever that would be here) since that's close to the Inundation of the Nile -- _akhet_ \-- the inundation -- is an important season in Egypt, and this place, for whatever reason, is directly related to Egypt. It's a common iconography, especially since the pyramid is dedicated to Ra, the Sun god. The Ancient Egyptians had a complicated relationship with the sun. It was the giver of life, but in the desert, it was also a harsh destroyer. The sun and moons will set directly behind the pyramid from the vantage point of anyone watching from the foot of the steps.

_Do_ people watch from the foot of the steps?

At the back of the pyramid the shadows are so deep that she has to move by touch, and when she finally gives up and pulls out her lantern again, she sees there's something more than just unrelenting sand. There's a low mud-brick wall behind the pyramid, and scraggly vegetation -- the first she's seen. She's hopeful, and then she passes the wall and sees the wooden cover -- where does the wood come from? -- over a structure familiar to her from a thousand desert villages. Cistern. Well. There's even a watering trough. What sort of animals drink here? When?

Is there water?

She sets her lantern down on top of the wall and hauls the lid off. She can smell water. Picking up her lantern again to peer down inside, she sees that there's a bucket and rope tucked into a niche in the interior. The rope is secured to a wooden ring set into the wall of the well. She fingers it curiously. It feels like animal hair, but it's still too dark to see. She drops the bucket down and hears it splash, far below. She jiggles it expertly, and when she hauls it up, it's heavy. _Water._ She's not going to die.

The water tastes sharp and cold, harsh with minerals and metal. She drinks until her stomach hurts, washes her face and her hands, soaks down her t-shirt for the sheer joy of getting wet -- it's still cold out here, but there's a breath of breeze now. Dawn is coming, old instincts tell her.

She fills both canteens and then drinks again. Then she replaces the bucket and the lid, because you always, _always_ leave a desert well exactly as you found it.

It's too cold for her out here, but there was no way for her to bring warm clothes with her. At least Jack's soldiers left her some blankets. She goes back into the pyramid, wraps herself up, and eats her breakfast (Powerbar, candy bar, antihistamines, caffeine pills, and she wishes she could at least brew tea. Well, she has matches, and maybe she'll find wood somewhere. Or something to burn). 

Did the others find the well? They have to have. She found it in less than an hour. They didn't set up camp by the well. So they found something better. What would be better?

A town.

If the pyramid were unfinished, there would be a craftsman village around the foot, where the workers would be housed. The pyramid is obviously finished, and there are no other structures visible. But if a ship lands here, it has to land here for a reason. City or village somewhere else out of sight? Has to be. And it will be oriented on the pyramid. Because the Ancient Egyptians were geometry-mad, and this place is _Egypt_ , dammit: Egypt in the stars. If she goes undeviatingly west from the doorway of the pyramid, she has _got_ to run into something else important. She's just hopes it will be a village.

Better to look around the pyramid first, though. At the very least, she needs to know how hot it gets here before leaving her only known source of water. And Abydos (Khefiu) is an alien planet. It might do anything.

She sits on the temple steps, wrapped in her blankets, and watches the dawn come (it takes a long time), before she continues exploring. She feels safe in exploring now. There's water.

When she returns to the well by daylight, Dani sees that the pyramid isn't the only structure here. About a mile away -- distances are deceptive in the desert, but she thinks it's fairly close, and it _should_ be close, since (on Earth) the Pyramids were situated near temple complexes -- she sees another building, or at least the entrance to one. She heads for it, counting her steps to judge the distance. A mile almost exactly, due west. She hopes -- it's possible -- that it's where Jack and everyone else is, but when she reaches the entrance and calls out, there's no reply.

She tells herself she isn't disappointed, that she'd already known they wouldn't be here. This place is close enough to the pyramid that if they were living here, they'd have taken all their supplies with them.

But it's a structure outside the pyramid, so it's another place to look for the Stargate glyphs she needs. She lights her lantern and goes inside. The entrance leads to an underground cavern -- at least, there are steps inside, and they lead down. 

When she sees what's there, she's entranced, in the literal sense of the word.

Gigantic golden Horus hawks line the sides of the cavern. The walls are made of something deep blue that is no material she recognizes (not glass, not lapis lazuli, not metal). And the walls are covered with groups of Stargate glyphs. _Covered._

Moving carefully through the darkness -- and wishing for a generator and some decent worklights -- Dani makes her way along the wall. The room is nearly a quarter of a mile long, and the entire wall (and maybe the other one, wherever it is) is covered with six-glyph sets (none of the coordinates has the Point of Origin glyph). She tries simply to count them, and can't. There are thousands. This is like a-- A telephone book. If each of these glyph-sets represents the coordinates for a world like Khefiu, then the entire galaxy is filled with Stargates. 

_Oh, god, the Stargate goes more places than just Khefiu..._

And if the address for Earth were here, how would she find it? She knows the symbol that represents Earth -- its point-of-origin symbol, and she knows the address for Khefiu. Would that help? Would the address from Khefiu to Earth be nearby? And what about the Seventh Symbol? If someone's written down everything else, they have to have written that down, too. Even if she _has_ the rest of the Dialing Symbols for Earth, the Stargate won't work without all seven.

But at least she has a place to start.

#

It takes Dani hours just to make a full circuit of what she's decided to name the Cartouche Room, checking as carefully as she can for other passageways, for any place that the Seventh Symbol might be written. Once she's gone all the way around the room (no passageways that she can see, though she finds several pedestal-braziers, all -- unfortunately -- empty) she goes back outside to check time and weather before starting a box-search of the center of the chamber (cursing the darkness, because one candlepower isn't enough to let her see from one side of it to the other). Her watch says it's noon. The sun says it's midmorning -- the days must be longer than they are on Earth -- and it's already hot. Six hours later (the room is huge), she stops to make a second check. It's just past noon (by the sun, this time), and the temperature out here is over a hundred degrees, she thinks.

She lingers in the doorway, basking in the heat. She can't remember the last time she was warm like this. Summer in New York was humid, summer in Chicago was cold. She'd longed for the bright baking dryness of the desert. Finally (a little reluctantly) she goes back inside.

The box-search of the central space doesn't yield anything. The center space of the chamber is empty and featureless. She does a more careful check of the walls -- burning through her supply of precious candles recklessly -- pausing this time to make notes and rough sketches. But the blue not-glass is seamless. If there are hidden doors to other rooms here, they're going to stay hidden.

By the time her watch says she's been working for a full day and she's out of water, the sun's barely starting to set. Time to go back, get some rest, and figure out how to do the next thing she has to do. She's halfway back to the pyramid when she realizes she can smell dust on the air. The wind is rising. Not much yet. Just a little.

Sandstorm.

She runs. She doesn't know how long she has before it hits. She knows that people die in sandstorms -- from asphyxiation, from getting lost, from being crushed under the weight of a shifting dune. She has no intention of dying in any of these ways. By the time she reaches the steps of the pyramid there's enough sand in the air to sting her skin. Even with the scarves wrapped firmly around her face, it's hard to breathe, even harder to see. She slips and slides on the steps as she climbs, and by now the wind is howling around her and the air has gone shadowy and dark as the wall of sand comes like a black veil out of the west, swirling around the pyramid.

She just makes it inside.

Gasping, sputtering, choking -- dry-mouthed, no water, and no chance of water, now. But alive, and going to stay that way. She stands back from the doorway and watches the sand plunge the world into an artificial night before she retrieves her lantern and candles from a pocket. Only five candles left.

But she's leaving tomorrow.

She's looked over the pyramid and its immediate area. She hasn't found what Barbara insisted on calling a return address -- well, not the specific one, anyway, though it might be buried in the thousands of addresses she _has_ discovered. She's found plenty of indication that four of Jack's team spent time here, but she has no idea which four, or when. She knows why they didn't make their first check in: the radio was broken. She knows why they weren't here when she came through on the second check-in: there was a sandstorm.

So tomorrow at dawn -- whenever that is -- she'll take off in a direct line away from the entrance to the pyramid and see if she can find a village. And hope she can find shelter before the next -- probably inevitable -- sandstorm. She's been here two days. There's been one both days. No reason not to expect another one.

She hopes she finds people. She hopes she can talk to them. She hopes they know where Jack and the others are. She refuses to think about the possibility that they aren't all here, alive.

She's surprised that she sleeps at all.

#

It's Kawalsky who convinces O'Neill to go back to the pyramid, the day after the storm finally blows itself out. "Who knows, Colonel?" he says. "They might have left us a nice going away present or something."

O'Neill doesn't think it's the way to bet -- the Air Force probably gave them up for dead weeks ago -- but they really should try to clear out the pyramid, and at least bring back some more ammo. He wishes he could get at Base Camp, but after two months he isn't sure where it is any more. Besides, it would take a lot of help to dig it out, and that would take ... being able to talk to these people. Which they can't.

Maybe next year.

So the following day it's him and Kawalsky and a bunch of the local equivalent of burlap sacks. Skaara comes along, so Sha're does too, and they bring one of the alien yaks to carry the stuff back. 

They leave at dawn, to avoid the heat.

#

When Dani wakes up again she checks her watch. It tells her it's after ten in the morning; she's slept for almost half a day. She lights her lantern and walks barefoot to the temple doorway. The _khamsin_ has blown itself out; the desert is still dark, but the sky is filled with stars. She goes back, puts her boots on, goes quickly to the cistern, draws up a bucket of water, and drinks. She fills both canteens carefully, then goes back to the pyramid and packs her backpack just as carefully (how long is it until dawn?) These all her supplies, and they aren't much if she doesn't find someone soon. She debates one last time about bringing one of the weapons from the box, and decides against it. If she can't talk her way out of whatever situation she finds herself in, she's not sure what good a gun will do. She rolls and lashes one of the two blankets to the bottom of the backpack; she'll drape herself in the other for added protection from the sun, she decides.

She tosses the blanket over her shoulder, puts on her boonie hat, and makes sure her sunglasses are handy; she'll need them when the sun rises. Takes out her compass and checks it. She's all ready, and there's enough ambient light to begin, but Dani realizes she's afraid to move. It's been two months. Anything could have happened.

Jack, she knows (somehow) wouldn't stop, wouldn't think, wouldn't hesitate. He'd just _go_. So she starts down the steps. Looking for Jack. Looking for all of them.

#

Kawalsky is the eternal optimist. After two months, he's _still_ convinced he's going to be able to teach Skaara and Sha're the words to _'Row, Row, Row Your Boat,'_ and to get them to sing along with him. Skaara's game, but Sha're is much too shy; she just wraps her veil around her head and won't look at either of them. O'Neill's not sure why she keeps following him around. Or why Kasuf -- who seems to be her father -- lets her.

All the noise the two of them are making would worry O'Neill a lot more if he'd seen any indication that there was anything here but the one town and the pit-mines. Not that he has any way of knowing for sure. When they first got here, O'Neill tried to get Kasuf to draw them a map of the area. The guy practically had a coronary. It took O'Neill a while after that to figure out that they hadn't seen writing of any kind here. Meyers said that proves these people couldn't have built the Pyramid or the Stargate. They're too primitive.

If they didn't, somebody else did.

It's about three hours from Megiddo back to the pyramid. They take the scenic route, since the yak doesn't like walking through the deep sand if it doesn't have to, and O'Neill can't blame it. Most of the way they stick to _reg_ , a surface with which both he and Kawalsky are much too familiar. 

The days are 36 hours long here. That throws his time-sense out of whack -- the sun just creeps across the sky, and for once the length of the day isn't just his imagination. At least it means it stays cooler longer in the mornings. The sun is just starting to rise behind the pyramid when Skaara finally swings the yak south and into the dunes. It's hard work getting the animal up over the top of the ridge -- Sha're pulls at its head and Skaara prods at its south end and O'Neill's reminded of his grandfather's stories of farming with a mule. He wonders if the locals plow with these things. They have bread and beer. They have to farm.

Between the two of them, the kids finally manage to get the yak up into the dunes. The yak-thing doesn't seem to be too put out when they finally let it stop. Going back should be easier.

"Uh, Colonel?" Kawalsky says. "Should those be there?"

There's a note in Kawalsky's voice that brings O'Neill instantly alert. He looks where Kawalsky is pointing. From where they're standing they can see down across the dune -- the area ahead is flatter by some trick of the wind -- all the way to the foot of the pyramid. Each evening the sandstorms scour the sand completely smooth, so it's very easy to see the line of footprints marching ruler-straight away from the foot of the pyramid steps and out across the sand. Or in.

He looks at Skaara and points toward the row of dimples in the sand.

Skaara sees what he's pointing at -- the kid is quick -- but his reaction isn't what O'Neill expects. Skaara's come here with O'Neill to the pyramid before -- although he wouldn't go inside -- but this time he grabs the sleeve of O'Neill's robe -- they're all wearing desert robes over their own clothing by now -- and is trying to pull him away, babbling so fast in his native lingo that O'Neill probably couldn't follow him even if he understood it. The subtitles are clear, though. _They should all leave. Now._

"No. Look. Skaara. I have to go inside and look around."

By now Sha're is upset, too, so of course the yak starts getting fussy.

"Kawalsky, come on. Let's go check it out." He unshoulders his M-60 and heads out across the sand, every instinct screaming to him that the gallery girdling the pyramid, or its doorway, would be great places for a sniper. But there's no cover between the ridge and the pyramid itself, and no choice but to walk right up to it if he wants to go in. So that's what he and Kawalsky do, two extras from _Lawrence of Arabia_ out for a Sunday stroll.

He wonders what day it is here on Planet Abydos. On Earth, it's somewhere around noon on a Wednesday. The last activation of the Stargate was Monday. By Friday, Project Giza will be dismantled, its resources and personnel assigned to other programs. He and his team will be officially declared KIA. The lawyer will call Sara. Life will go on. Maybe Langford will take care of Dani. They'd seemed to like each other.

He and Kawalsky reach the top of the steps without anybody shooting at them. They stand with their backs to the door, one on each side. O'Neill feels like a cop on a television show.

"Hey, would you look at that, Colonel? Straight as a ruler," Kawalsky says.

O'Neill looks. The footsteps over the sand are in an unnaturally straight line. They go on until they vanish over a dune. Still straight.

"I wonder which way they're going?" Kawalsky adds.

"Let's find out," O'Neill says. 

They enter the pyramid. It's empty. But somebody's been here since the last time O'Neill visited, and he doesn't have to have memorized the placement of every last piece of junk his team left behind to figure that out. The floor is polished black stone. The sandstorms leave white dust. There are clear footprints in the dust. Small feet. A woman or a child. Cleated bootsoles, but not military issue. Only one set of tracks.

"Holy cow," Kawalsky says, looking at the tracks. "You think someone else came through the Stargate?"

"That, or aliens have discovered hiking boots," O'Neill says. He's starting to develop a nasty suspicion that he's hoping to have proven wrong. They search the Stargate Chamber. There's an empty ammunition case -- one of theirs -- that wasn't there before. It's full of trash. O'Neill goes through the trash carefully. Power Bar wrappers. Candy bar wrappers: Fifth Avenue, Butterfinger, Reece's Peanut Butter Cups, Hershey's. Several single-dose packets of antihistamines.

"I'm going to kill her," O'Neill says to nobody in particular. He isn't sure where the conviction has sprung from that Dani's come through the Stargate (God knows how), but he is somehow as certain of it as he is of his own name. She's here. Somewhere. 

"Kawalsky." Kawalsky was Dani's chief minder back on the Mountain. Half the time that involved keeping her chocolate fix supplied. He shows Kawalsky the candy wrappers. 

"How the hell did she get here, sir?" Kawalsky has apparently come to the same conclusion.

O'Neill points at the Stargate. "They fired it up two days ago."

"And you think they let her come through?"

O'Neill laughs sharply. "No, Kawalsky, I don't think they _let_ her come through. I think she got through somehow and when I get my hands on her she's going to wish she hadn't. C'mon. We need to follow those tracks to see where she went."

#

Dani slips and slides in the fine sand as she walks, swearing under her breath from nervousness and stifled fear. There's something both terrifying and exciting about crossing an uncharted -- in all senses of the word -- desert with absolutely no idea of what she'll encounter over the next dune. It makes her really appreciate the vastness of deserts, because now not even imagination can tell her what's on the other side. (She's on an alien planet. Anything could be there.) There's just sun above -- rising impossibly slowly -- and white sand below, and every few minutes she has to stop and check her compass to make sure she's on course, because she might not be, and then she'd be in trouble.

More trouble than she's already in.

The temperature out here must be over a hundred degrees by now, and it's still morning. What's worse is the fact that the air is cool in comparison to the temperature down on the sand. Even with dark glasses and a boonie hat and a blanket draped over her head and shoulders, she's terrifyingly badly-equipped for this. Not nearly enough water. No idea of where she's going. What's worse is that she knows that there will -- probably -- be a sandstorm at sunset, and she doesn't dare find herself caught out in the open when it comes. If she's going to have any hope of getting back to the pyramid and shelter, she needs to turn back by noon at the very latest, and really noon will be too late, because she'll be slower going back than she was coming out, and she'll be in desperate need of water when she arrives. But if she turns back at all, she'll be all-but-admitting that any village that's out here is beyond her ability to reach. As the sun climbs higher, she argues the question back and forth (always remembering that she only has food for another day at most). She hasn't quite made up her mind when the endless brightness of the horizon is broken by a dark blur. Rocks? Oasis? Mirage? She promises herself that she'll only go on long enough to be sure, then turn back.

But it isn't any of those things. And she doesn't have to turn back. She's found the city.

It's hard to make out through the heat-shimmer, but she can see a few details and guess at more. Some buildings three stories high. A walled city, either because of enemy tribes, or simply because of the violence of the local weather. At the moment, the gates stand open. She approaches them and stops just outside. What she can see bears a more-than-passing resemblance to the reconstructions she's seen of the ancient desert cities of the Near East: Jerusalem, Megiddo. It's less like the cities of Egypt -- there's no river here.

When she stops moving, she realizes what bad shape she's in. Nauseated. Dizzy. Not sweating. Probably wouldn't have made it back to the pyramid anyway. She'd mixed electrolyte powder into the water in the hard-sided canteen, but she should have done both. Stupid. What did she think she was saving it for?

"Hello?" she calls. She doubts they speak English, but if Jack or the others are here, maybe they'll hear her voice. "Hello?" she calls again. It's the last thing she remembers.

#

When she comes to -- it's only a few minutes later, she thinks -- she's inside the gates. Lying under one of the awnings she saw just inside. Surrounded by locals. Her head throbs and she can't see very well, but Dani feels a surge of relief. People mean food and techniques of desert survival: safety.

Someone is calling her name.

"Dr. Jackson? Dr. Jackson? Can you hear me?" It's Gary.

"Yes. Yes. I--" She tries to sit up. Someone pushes her down again. She hears giggling, and chatter in a language she doesn't understand.

"What are you doing here? Did they send a rescue party? Where are the others?" Gary demands.

She tries to sit up again and manages it this time. She looks around cautiously -- her eyes are still sun-dazzled -- to find that she's sitting in the middle of a circle of robed and veiled women, all of whom are looking at her anxiously. Meyers is there, also in robes. He's badly sunburned, and has managed to break his glasses. 

Her head really hurts, dammit.

She _fainted?_

"No rescue," she says. Her voice is a parched croak. "Just me. Jack. Where's Jack?"

One of the women offers her a dipper of water. "Thank you," Dani says automatically, taking it. Her hands shake as she lifts it to her mouth. A gourd; that's interesting. They can't be growing them anywhere near here. The water is cool, with the same mineral taste as the well at the pyramid. Same source? It tastes heavenly, and she forces herself not to gulp it. " _Where's Jack_?" she says when she's finished, more sharply this time.

"He... The Colonel and Major Kawalsky went to the pyramid with a couple of the locals a few hours ago. They should be back later," Gary finally says.

Jack is alive. Her relief is so great she thinks she might actually start crying. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. "He's all right?" she asks. "Everyone's all right?"

"Except for the fact that we're _stuck here,_ " Gary says irritably.

Dani gives him a murderous look. _He_ was the one who'd been supposed to find them the way back. He didn't.

"Dr. Jackson, there was nothing to _find_!" Gary protests, interpreting her expression without the least difficulty. "You said the return address would be near the Stargate! There were no glyphs anywhere in the vicinity!"

"Oh, get off it, Gary," Dani snaps. "There was a whole room full of Gate addresses -- thousands of them -- about a mile from the pyramid. One of them _has_ to be it. Why didn't you find it? I did. What about the catacombs at the back of the pyramid? No writing there, but some very disturbing iconography. Didn't you see it?"

Gary just stares at her. "You're making that up," he says slowly.

Dani leans forward, resting her head on her knees. Fortunately she still has her glasses, but whoever brought her in here seems to have taken her backpack, and she doesn't know where her hat and blanket are. She shakes her head, not bothering to look up. "Gary, where are the others? The soldiers?"

Gary is irritated at the question. "I don't know. Around. All the men here go out and work in the mines all day -- we saw them the first day we were here. Freeman said they're mining the same stuff the Stargate is built out of, but they don't seem to use it for anything. He and Brown are probably out there now. I don't know where the rest of them are."

She sighs. "How far have you gotten learning the language?"

"Hey, I'm not a linguist, _Doctor Jackson_. A couple of the kids have picked up some English words, but I'm not sure how much they really understand. Maybe if Colonel O'Neill had brought you instead of me, you'd have this place all figured out by now."

"I probably would have," she says absently.

"All I know is that they call this place Megiddo," he adds.

"No they don't."

"Oh, for God's sake--" Gary snarls.

"'Megiddo' is a Hebrew word. It's the root word for 'Armageddon.' Whatever they call this place, it isn't 'Megiddo.'" 

Gary's just about to start arguing with her in earnest -- the idiot -- when suddenly there's a flurrying in the women gathered around her. Dani _does_ look up, then. There's a man standing over her. He's old. Bearded. His clothes are the finest she's seen yet. Dani gets carefully to her feet and takes off her glasses -- she's wearing the dark ones, and concealing your eyes is often considered as rude as staring at faces.

"Gary? Who's this?" she asks.

"Oh, that's just Kasuf. He's sort of a village elder." Gary's tone is dismissive. He doesn't bother to move from where he's sitting. 

Dani would happily kill him Gary the spot. Kasuf is a tribal chief at least. They need his goodwill to stay alive. She bows to Kasuf, keeping her eyes downcast. "Thank you for your hospitality, and that of your women. My name is Danielle Jackson."

"He can't understand a word you're saying, you know," Gary says. Arrogant. Whining. Condescending. Kasuf may not understand English, but Dani's certain he can understand Gary's tone of voice.

"Shut up, Gary."

A gift. She should give Kasuf a gift. She doesn't have much. She feels at her vest pockets. Candy bar. It will have to do. She pulls it out. She prepares to offer it to Kasuf, then realizes he'll probably have no idea of what it is. She unwraps a bit of it. The chocolate is pretty melted, but it will have to do. She nibbles a bit of the end, and mimes great enjoyment, then holds it out to him on her upturned palms. "Here," she says. "A gift."

Kasuf takes it suspiciously, and takes a bite of the end. He smiles broadly. _"Bene-wa!"_ he says, pleased.

"Yes!" she agrees enthusiastically. _"Bene-wa!"_ she repeats, matching his pronunciation as much as she can. She wonders what "Bene-wa" means.

Kasuf gestures for her to accompany him. She glances back through the open village gates. The desert is still empty. But Jack will be coming back here. Soon. She picks up her pack and her hat -- still feeling more than a little unsteady -- puts her dark glasses back on, and follows Kasuf. Gary trails along behind. 

They walk along what Dani thinks must be the main street of the village. It's like walking into the past, and she has to keep dashing to catch up with Kasuf, because she keeps stopping just to _look._ After the first few times she does that, Kasuf slows his pace, and encourages her to keep up with broad gestures suitable for children and idiots. Along the way she keeps up a running commentary about what she's seeing to Kasuf -- though she knows he can't understand her -- and also to Gary (he just looks cross, and she can't imagine why, with Ancient Egypt brought to life all around him). 

At one point, Kasuf gestures for Dani to precede him, and they pass through a very large room; obviously a public space, though what it's used for isn't clear. It's dark and cool here, and her headache recedes slightly. Hanging overhead is something shrouded in a faded red cloth. She wonders what it is. A gong? A ritual object? Kasuf's 'house' is a series of rooms off the communal space. The living space is constructed like a warren, with rooms opening off other rooms. She hasn't had a chance to examine the village, of course, but she bets that when she maps it she'll find very few free-standing structures. More veiled women appear when Kasuf enters. And Gary is _looking at them._ "Don't stare at the women, Gary. It's rude," she says.

"Why?"

"This is a desert culture and the women veil. It's obvious. Just do what I tell you."

"You think that just because you're sleeping with Colonel O'Neill that gives you the right to order me around?" Gary snaps.

Dani stops in her tracks. She hadn't thought anyone knew. She turns back and looks up at Gary. He's got an ugly sneer on his face, and she realizes that he's both scared and -- possibly -- dangerous. And she really doesn't have time for this.

"No, _Dr. Meyers._ Who I sleep with isn't the issue here. My degree in Anthropology and my experience with desert cultures _is_. Do I have to remind you that we _still_ don't have a way to get home, and, until we do we're dependent on the charity of this tribe for our survival?"

Silence. Okay, maybe she should have been a little more conciliating. "Go find one of the others and tell them I'm here, okay? I'm going to stay and see if I can figure out how to talk to Kasuf."

Gary doesn't move.

"Come on, Gary. I need your help. Please." What she really needs is his absence.

Finally he turns and leaves. When he's gone, she breathes a deep sigh of relief. Kasuf is looking at her. Curious. Worried. She forces a smile, hoping she isn't being offensive. Some cultures smile, some don't. "I'm sure you have to deal with this sort of thing a lot in your village," she says to Kasuf.

Kasuf smiles back uncertainly, and Dani feels relieved, even though it's the 'Crazy Americans' smile. (She's seen it a lot over the years.) He gestures for her to follow him deeper into the house. Soon she's seated upon a low divan in his common room, sipping tea from a glazed cup. She's changed her dark glasses out for her regular ones, so he can see her eyes and she can _see_. 

Whatever else is in the tea -- it tastes like tar and twigs -- there's also caffeine. Her headache is almost gone. That's the only good thing right now, because she's tried every version of the Egyptian language she knows, as well as Arabic, Omotik, even Hebrew. Nothing. Kasuf simply looks baffled by her attempts to communicate. In frustration, she holds out the cup in her hands.

_< "This? What do you call this? Cup? Cup?"> _ She's back to Egyptian, and the oldest dialect she knows. Everything she sees here looks Egyptian, as if she's back in Ancient Egypt of five thousand years ago. And the pyramid was Egyptian. So why aren't they speaking the language?

He takes it, and says something. But it's not quite the same. Linguistic drift? No. _Vowel shift._

_How long have these people been here?_

Language _evolves._

She leaps to her feet, stares around the room. There. Picks up a basket. Holds it out to him. _< "Basket?"> _ she says hopefully. Kasuf repeats the word. Or something like it. But different.

Nouns. She needs more nouns.

#

By the end of an hour Dani and Kasuf have named -- together -- every object in the room, and she has constructed her first shaky sentence in Abydan (Khefian). The name of the village is Nagada, not Megiddo. _She can talk to these people._

And the moment she starts trying to ask Kasuf about writing, she discovers all over again that Gary Meyers is a moron. Writing is taboo here. Seriously taboo. It should have been the first thing Gary told her, and he didn't say a thing. So when she tries to ask Kasuf about symbols for the Stargate -- illustrating what she needs by taking out one of her journals to draw the Gate address for the-planet-that-isn't Abydos on one of the blank pages -- the poor man nearly passes out on the spot. He grabs her book and tries to throw it into the fire. She grabs it back and stuffs it back into her pack, and sits on the pack for good measure.

_< "Kasuf, we need to find those marks to go home,"> _ she says. 

_< "It is the forbidden thing! Ra will punish! Ra will see! He will slay us all! You must destroy the forbidden thing at once!"> _

Kasuf is obviously not going to back down. But ... Ra has forbidden writing? The Egyptians _invented_ writing. _< "Very well, good father."> _ She takes one of the blank journals out of her pack -- one she hasn't written in yet -- and shows it to him. He plainly doesn't want to see inside it. She takes it and places it into the fire. As it starts to burn, he relaxes. She's sorry to deceive him, but she's damned if she's going to lose her notes. _< "Tell me more of Ra, good father."> _

Kasuf regards her strangely. _< "Do you not know of Great Lord Ra? Have you and the others not come through the _chappa'ai _as his messengers? We serve Lord Ra. We mine the_ naquaadah _and provide the tribute. When the moons are next full we will attend upon him that he may receive his due. Will you not go with him then?" > _

Ra is coming back? Soon? That _can't_ be good.

_< "I must speak with my master and take his counsel before I may speak,"> _ she says carefully. Saying she _has_ a master should be reassuring, based on what she's guessing about Khefian culture.

Kasuf looks away delicately. _< "Is it permitted to ask if you are Oneer's consort? I ask, not wishing to give offense, as I had hoped to betroth him to my daughter, since he is a Herald of Ra. Yet I am unsure. You say you are a woman, yet you dress as a man. Forgive me if my words offend you. I have, if it pleases you, a son as well. He is young yet, but also of royal lineage."> _

_Oh, this is awkward._ Dani hesitates. She would very much like to be 'Oneer's consort,' even if it's only a stupid fantasy, even if she's only known the man two weeks (most of which she spent staring at Catherine Langford's coverstone). But there's no way of knowing _for sure_ if she can get Jack and the others _off_ this alien planet. She's uncovered a cache of several thousand Return Addresses, and the one for Earth (and the Seventh Symbol) is probably among them ... somewhere ... but that doesn't mean they can find it. And an alien god -- one who isn't very nice -- is going to be showing up soon, and Dani doesn't know what will happen then. And if they _can't_ get off this planet, well, Kasuf has just offered her his son, and with him, marriage into the Royal House. Security for all of them if they have to stay, and if they do, she'll certainly accept that offer. But the fact that she's pregnant isn't going to be a secret for very much longer, and in some cultures that wouldn't matter and in some it would be a blessing and in some she'd be stoned to death and _she doesn't know which kind this is._

_< "I am indeed a woman, good father. I dress in the way that it is customary in my ... land ... but I will be happy to dress in the manner that will best please you and your people while I am here. I have no desire to offend against your customs. As for the ... other matter ... I ask that you permit me speak with Oneer and take his counsel first, before I speak further of these matters with you."> _

_< "That is well,"> _ Kasuf agrees, looking pleased. _< "It will be good for the people to see you follow our ways. Come, then. My household will provide all that you need."> _

#

Dani thinks she's managed to side-step all the potential problems. She's wrong. Kasuf leads her to another room and leaves her there with a bunch of women. They're old enough to be his wife-or-wives (Egypt was polygamous -- is Khefiu?), and when she tries to talk to them, they hiss like a gaggle of affronted geese, so she stops (intergenerational speech taboos?) The first thing they want to do is strip her down to the skin, and they cluck and mutter over every stitch of her clothing, and her boots most of all. Dani has no problem with being naked, but it leaves her wearing nothing but her tattoo and Catherine's pendant, and _they_ have a problem with that. A real problem. Suddenly everyone in the room is down on their faces, gabbling so fast that she can't understand a word they're saying. Except for the fact that they seem to be ... praying to her.

 _< "Get up,"> _ she begs. She's naked in the middle of a bunch of dun-colored wailing bundles, and the noise isn't helping her powers of concentration. _< "Please. I'm not going to hurt you. It's just a tattoo. A painting on my skin. Please. Get up. Oh, please."> _

Finally the oldest of the women raises her head. _< "The Goddess is not angered?"> _

_< "I am not a goddess. I am only a woman like yourself. My name is Dani. Please. Get up. Please. I need your help to dress."> _

The old woman struggles to her feet. Dani helps her stand. The old woman gazes into Dani's eyes intently for a moment, then places a hand on Dani's belly.

_< "You are with child?"> _

Only two and a half months. But she's small. It already shows, just a little. At least when she's naked. Her heart beats wildly because _she doesn't know what the right answer is._ At last she bows her head. _< "It is as you say."> _

The old woman grunts and aims a kick at the backside of the nearest of the other women. _< "Get up, lazy fools! No god was ever with child! The blessed servant of Ra requires clothing!"> _

The other women get to their feet and go back to work as if nothing was ever wrong. But something is. _'No god was ever with child'_? Isis had Osiris, just for starters. How much have things been changed here from the way Egypt really was?

And why?

Soon enough she's dressed again. She folds her own clothing carefully, and puts as much of it as she can into her backpack.

_< "And the father of your child?"> _ the old woman asks. Dani has heard some of the others address her as 'Akiqa' -- if you allow for the vowel shift, it's 'Haquika'. 'Honest.' She hopes it's a good sign.

_< "He is a man from my own land,"> _ Dani says carefully. Of course he is. She hasn't been in Nagada long enough to get pregnant.

_< "And are you his concubine? Or his wife?"> _ Akiqa asks.

_< "He has a wife,"> _ Dani says, thinking of the pictures she saw in Jack's house. _A wife, and a son._

Akiqa nods. _< "Perhaps when you give him a son he will take you as Second Wife. It is better to be a wife than a concubine."> _

_< "Truly, that is so,"> _ Dani agrees. It's nice that she's learning so much about Khefian social customs, but she'd really rather not be having this conversation at all. It's bad enough that the women of Kasuf's household now know that she's pregnant -- that means that all the women in Nagada will know it by the end of the day -- oh hell, make that everyone in Nagada, since at least some of the women will tell their husbands (sons, brothers, whatever). She's just glad she's the only one here who speaks the language.

Akiqa carefully adjusts Dani's veil around her face and leads her back out to Kasuf. He smiles when he sees her wearing the robes and veil.

_< "My son and daughter return,"> _ Kasuf says. _< "Oneer and Kha'wash'ki are with them. Let us go and greet them."> _

Kasuf leads Dani back to the Main Gate. The sand is shimmering with heat, and it takes her a while to focus on the figures in the distance. When she does, all she sees at first is a big black blotch. It resolves itself into something that looks like a giant yak. Two people are riding it. Two robed figures -- carrying guns -- are walking beside it.

She runs.

#

The gates are in sight when one of the Megiddonians -- a woman -- comes running through them. There's something wrong about the way she moves, though, and before O'Neill can quite put his finger on it he sees the flash of light on glasses and realizes it's got to be Dani.

He barely has time to get his M60 out of the way before she flings her arms around his neck and holds on so tight he can barely breathe. And his arms go around her too, for just a second, until he catches sight of Kawalsky trying not to grin.

"What the _hell_ are you doing here?" O'Neill snaps, grabbing Dani by the shoulders and shoving her back. She looks scared and excited and guilty as hell. She's shaking all over and her eyes are glittering with tears.

"I had to come -- I found things -- I don't know -- it might help -- I jumped through while they were trying to contact you. Jack--"

"The General didn't send you," he says. General West would never have done anything that stupid, but he needs to be sure.

"No, I--" She stops.

"Aw, jeeze," Kawalsky says. _"Doc."_

"You 'jumped through,'" O'Neill says in a quiet voice. "You know we're stuck here, don't you?"

"Yes!" she says, as if it's nothing at all. "Because Gary couldn't find the return address! But I can, Jack, I know I can! I've already found a room with thousands of Stargate hieroglyphs, we just have to figure out--"

"'Thousands of hieroglyphs?'" he interrupts her. "Where?"

She points back toward the pyramid. "There's a building about a mile away from the pyramid. And I can _talk_ to them! Jack, it's just a dialect of ancient Egyptian! There was a vowel shift; that's why I didn't get it at first, but Kasuf and I worked back from some common nouns, and, and -- I can _talk_ to them..." She falters to a stop because he's just staring at her. 

O'Neill looks at Kawalsky. Kawalsky's looking far too pleased with himself, but O'Neill doesn't have the heart to reprimand him right now. _She can talk to them._ That's his girl, all right, and he'd better be careful to keep from looking as proud as he feels, or God knows what she'll do next. "So," he says casually. "What did Kasuf have to say?"

#

Dani stares at Jack, suddenly tongue-tied. She thought she'd be happy just to see him again, but suddenly there are too many things to think about at once and she feels lightheaded and uncertain all over again. What will Jack want to know first?

"Nice clothes, Doc," Charlie says, and winks at her.

Dani takes a deep breath. "Ra. The god Ra is coming back to accept their tribute. I don't know what it is, but they call it _naquaadah._ Kasuf says he'll come the next time the moons are full. When he does, Kasuf thinks we'll leave with him. Kasuf thinks we're Heralds of Ra because we came through the _chappa'ai_ \-- the Stargate. Ra... he's not very nice. Jack ... there are pictures of Ra in the pyramid. He's ... different."

#

Not the most coherent briefing O'Neill's ever gotten, but from Dani Jackson it's a miracle of on-point brevity. The moons will be full again in three days, maybe four. Ra will be here then. Ra isn't nice. Ra is 'different.' All he needs to do now is find out what those things mean in Dani's mind.

"Oh," she adds, "and Kasuf's been trying to betroth you to his daughter. You might want to head that off."

"To that _kid_?" Kawalsky sputters. "To Sha're?" He jerks a thumb up at one of the two riders on the alien yak-beast.

"She's his daughter. A royal princess, as far as I can tell. He wants me to marry his son. I've managed to side-step that for now," Dani adds. 

For an instant O'Neill thinks about strangling her, if only because apparently these matters have equal weight in her mind with what she's just told him about Ra. "Let's get out of the sun," he says, after a pause.

#

They stop at the gate to pay their respects to Kasuf, then Jack and Charlie lead the animal around to another gate which goes directly to a stabling area. There are more of the creatures here -- Charlie says they're space-yaks -- and Dani thinks the 'space yaks' must be taking the place of camels in this culture. If the Khefians don't use camels, it provides a check for how long ago they've been cut off from their parent culture. (The Stargate is ten thousand years old, but when was it buried?) _Camelus dromedarius_ was domesticated in the fourth millennium BCE, but only introduced into Egypt during the first millennium BCE. _Camelus bactrianus_ was domesticated later -- around 3000-2500 BCE -- and known in Egypt, but it vanished from the Saharan and sub-Saharan region several centuries before the dromedary was introduced.

If the Khefians don't have camels ... they haven't been home in more than five millennia.

The three of them wait as Skaara and Sha're expertly unharness the creature. Jack starts to communicate with Skaara by sign language.

"What do you want him to do?" Dani asks. Jack looks at her, and she sees the moment when the penny finally completely drops. He doesn't need sign language any more. He's got an interpreter.

"Tell Skaara I need all of the sacks taken back to our quarters."

She does. Skaara is stunned. _She speaks his language._

_< "You come through the _chappa'ai _for Oneer? You are also a Herald of Ra? You are his sister, perhaps? You will tell me of Oneer? He is a great warrior, I am certain!" > _ Skaara says eagerly.

_< "Yes, I have come through the _chappa'ai _. I will tell you all that Oneer wishes me to say to you. He is indeed a great leader among our people. And now he asks you to do this thing for him," > _ she answers.

_< "Yes! Yes! I will do this thing, and then I will come to you and you will tell me of Oneer!"> _

_< "Be silent, brother! Do not weary the Heralds of Ra with your empty chattering, lest you tempt the God to destroy us all!"> _ Sha're interrupts Skaara, glaring at him a severely as she helps him bundle up the burlap sacks.

"Kawalsky, you go along with the kids and see that they get there all right, then round up as many of the men as you can find and bring them back to quarters. Now that we can finally talk to these people, we need to decide what questions to ask them," Jack says.

Kawalsky herds Sha're and Skaara off. He seems to have a good relationship with them, and she's glad (at least everyone here isn't acting like a moron). But that leaves her alone here with Jack.

"I should spank you until you couldn't sit down for a week," Jack tells her. Now that there are no witnesses, he sounds furious. "Do you realize what you've done?"

"I had to come," Dani says. She knows she should tell Jack about the baby. She meant to tell him (she's pretty sure) once she found him. But now that she actually can, she's suddenly terrified that Jack will think she's one of those spineless clinging women who can't imagine going through life without some man to make all of their decisions for them (the kind of woman Simon wanted to make her into). That the reason she came to Khefiu was to trap him and claim him -- and not to save him and his team and to keep General West from locking the Stargate away for another fifty years. Catherine is counting on her. She can't fail.

She'll get them back. She'll tell him then. But what if they can't get back _soon_? All the women know -- it's no secret any more -- and if he finds out from someone else she doesn't think he'll like it. What if--

"Why?" he asks harshly, and she realizes she needs to worry about all that later, because Jack is here _right now._

"To get you _home,_ " she says (isn't it obvious? Doesn't he want to go?) "They were going to close down the project and _leave_ you here."

"Do you think the fact that you've just committed _suicide_ is going to stop us?" he demands. "What do you think we're going to do with the Stargate when we close down the Project? Just leave it there under NORAD on the theory somebody might walk back through it some day?"

Dani stares at him in horror. She hadn't thought of that. What if they move the Stargate, and put it in a big box somewhere else? Will they still be able to get home then?

"Dani," he says, his voice gentler now.

"I had to come," she whispers. "It was my last chance." For what, she isn't even sure now. A life? To matter? To save somebody who'd been kind to her? _What the hell did she think she was doing?_

Jack sighs. "Come here," he says. He puts his arms around her and holds her. He smells of sweat and sun, and she fights back tears. "Well, you're here now. And at least that means I've got somebody here to explain to Kasuf that I'm not going to be marrying his daughter. She's a little young for me."

"I'll tell him," Dani says quickly. She casts about for more things that Jack needs to know. She doesn't want to talk about -- she doesn't want _him_ talking about -- why she's here. "Jack... Kasuf wanted to know if I... If I was your... consort. I didn't give him an answer."

"Get us both out of that marrying thing if you were, wouldn't it?" he says.

"Yeah." She takes a shaky breath.

"You don't mind?"

"Safer."

"We'll play it that way, then. Just while we're here."

"Sure." She _can't_ put this off. She has to tell him that she's pregnant at least -- she can lie and say he isn't the father; how will he know? But before she can summon up the words, he has an arm around her shoulders, and they're walking out into the streets of Nagada.

"Jack?"

"Hm?"

"This place isn't called Megiddo. Gary got that wrong. It's Nagada."

"Ah."

#

Just when you think a mission can't go more wrong, it always can. Dani's here. And there's something she's not telling him. He's trying to imagine what it could possibly be, considering what she _has_ told him. That she defied General West to jump through the Stargate. That an ancient Egyptian ... god ... is going to show up to collect tribute from the villagers in less than a week, said tribute being the Stargate material they've been mining all along. Which means that this Ra-guy is probably one of those radioactive lizard aliens he was sent to look for. So the mission clock is ticking again.

Crap.

When he gets them back to temporary quarters, Meyers and the rest of the team is there, except for Brown and Freeman, who spend most of their days out at the pit-mines. Kawalsky's briefed the others already, so there aren't any stunned looks when he comes in with Dani, but they all know she isn't supposed to be here.

Sha're and Skaara are there too. Sha're's all over Dani instantly, adjusting her veil to cover more of her face. There's a lot of chatter back and forth. Dani sounds apologetic. She says something to Skaara (who looks doubtful about it). Sha're says something crisp. Skaara leaves. Sha're turns back to Dani and has a lot more to say. Dani shrugs, then nods, saying something back.

"What?" O'Neill says.

"I asked if I could go and get my things from Kasuf's house. Sha're sent Skaara for them. Now--" Dani sighs "--Sha're and I are going to bring tea and food, since that's women's work. After we've served you, I can sit and talk to you, not before."

"I could get to like this place," O'Neill says, teasing a little to take the edge off things. (Not really. The status of women in the Middle East sucks royally, and he doesn't think Dani's going to like it much.)

"Desert cultures tend to be strongly gender-dimorphic, Jack, due to the competition for scarce resources," she tells him reprovingly. She follows Sha're out.

"Was I hearing right, Colonel?" Ferretti asks. "The Doc can talk the lingo?"

"That's right, Ferretti," he says.

"We going home, Colonel?" Porro asks.

All of his men look hopeful.

"It's too soon to be sure of anything," O'Neill says firmly. "What we do know is that Dr. Jackson speaks the Abydonian language. She'll be our translator and our guide to native customs from now on. So when she tells you how to behave, you do it." He's kept them on a short leash, but he can't do that forever, especially if they stay here; there haven't been any problems so far, but he knows it's only a matter of time. Mankiewicz is a weak link. And Meyers doesn't look very happy right now, either.

"So we're all going to bow down to the great Dr. Jackson yet again, Colonel O'Neill?" Meyers asks sullenly. "I, for one, am getting really tired of being ordered around by your--"

"You might want to shut that mouth of yours, Meyers," Kawalsky says meaningfully. "Something might fly into it."

"I don't see you getting us out of here, Meyers," Mankiewicz adds.

"Quiet," O'Neill says, and everyone (even Meyers) shuts up.

Dani and Sha're come back then with tea and food. So far they've been eating dinner in the big hall. Their quarters don't have anything remotely resembling a kitchen, but a couple of the local women bring them a big basket of bread every morning. Sha're's carrying a tall beaker and cups on a large tray; Dani's carrying a second tray with a collection of small pastries and preserved fruits. She kneels beside him. Automatically, he reaches out to take the tray from her.

"Don't," she says quietly.

"Put the tray down," O'Neill says. He doesn't want her acting like a servant in front of his men. She sets it down on the table beside him. Sha're speaks to her sharply. Dani answers, gesturing at him. Sha're quiets down.

#

By the time everyone there has been provided with tea and food, Skaara is back with a large basket (woven reeds; dammit, there _has_ to be open water somewhere here on Khefiu). When she looks inside, she sees it's her backpack and clothes. Dani thanks him, and bows, but he's looking at her strangely now, and she wonders what he heard in Kasuf's house (although she's pretty sure she can guess). Skaara's young enough that he might be counted among the women instead of the men for a lot of social purposes, but it's still a good bet that the news that one of the 'Heralds of Ra' is knocked up is starting to spread among the men as well as the women. She fights off a spasm of panic.

"Wha'cha bring us from home, Doc?" Kawalsky asks.

"Not a lot, I'm afraid," she says. She pulls the knapsack out of the basket and digs through it, brandishing items as she names them. "Tea... salt... some candy... Powerbars... a few first aid supplies... compass... You guys left socks, playing cards, and a canteen back at the pyramid, and here they are. I brought reference materials. That's about it."

"Kawalsky, you'll take charge of everything but the ... reference materials. Dani, see him later to split up your stuff."

"Okay," she says warily. She finds Jack a little intimidating right now. 

"Now. You said Ra will be coming to collect the tribute the next time the moons are full. That's in three or four days. You also said that Ra is, ah 'scary' and 'different.' You want to go into a little more detail there?" Jack asks briskly.

"Um... That would take a little while." And she already knows Jack isn't that interested in Ancient Egypt. She looks at him unenthusiastically, but he doesn't let her off the hook.

"Oh, for god's sake, can't you just answer a simple question?" Meyers demands.

"Oh, I think we've got time for the long version," Jack says lightly. "Go ahead, Dr. Jackson."

This is about dominance as much as it's about information-gathering, Dani's smart enough to figure that out. About being the lion tamer in the cage, and god help them all if the lions figure out that the whip is just a meaningless noisemaker. She takes a deep breath. She hasn't been this nervous since she explained how the Stargate worked to that panel of Generals. She starts by explaining that Ra was the chief god of the Ancient Egyptian pantheon, and what his attributes were: there, Ra was a distant, benevolent god who had gifted the Egyptians with all the arts of civilization and who was also, almost incidentally, the father of the gods. She next explains about finding the catacombs attached to the Great Pyramid here. How the catacombs are painted with pictures about Ra, but that the Ra that they depict is very different than the one from Ancient Egypt. This Ra seems to be much darker and more violent, and the iconography on the walls seems to be very much about surveillance and punishment. Also, no other gods are mentioned, which is inconsistent with the way that the gods of ancient Egypt are normally portrayed. 

Her audience lost interest during the first part of her lecture (except for Gary, who's dynamically ignoring her), but they get it back in spades when she mentions not only the catacombs, but the fact that the Ra depicted there seems to be a psychotic mental case.

Next, she moves on to current events. She tells them that Kasuf, the head of the royal house of Nagada, has told her that the villagers mine the _naquaadah_ \-- that's what they call the Stargate mineral -- in order to pay it as tribute to Ra. Jack's already told them what she's told him: that Ra will be coming very soon to collect his tribute.

"He's coming back?" Kawalsky asks. Not just to make sure, but so that she'll answer the question again where everyone will hear.

"Kasuf says he'll be coming again when the moons are full," Dani answers. "He seemed pretty sure."

"How do they pay the tribute?" Jack asks.

_< "Sha're? Skaara? Oneer wishes to know in what manner the tribute is paid to Ra."> _

Both of them look puzzled at her question. _< "It is paid in the way it has always been paid, Dana're. Lord Ra's great sky boat comes to the Place of Ra. We bring our tribute to the _chappa'ai _, and Ra bears it away," > _ Sha're answers.

She translates this back into English with her glosses. She's always believed that the pyramids functioned as landing pads for alien spacecraft; looks like she was right. Ra's 'great sky boat' is probably a spaceship, she tells the others.

"What would happen if they didn't pay?" Jack asks.

"Ra would kill them," she says, without bothering to ask. "Kasuf told me that Ra would see and slay them all just because I tried to get him to show me the return address for Earth -- for writing a few marks on a piece of paper. What do you think he'd do if they refused to hand over his 'tribute?'"

"Do you think this guy's really that bad?" Jack asks.

"Those pictures were really ... creepy," she answers. She can't repress a shudder.

"Okay. Tell Sha're and Skaara we're going back to the pyramid tomorrow. We're going to need shovels. And a bunch of yak-things. And any of the villagers we can get to come along to help."

She doesn't quite roll her eyes. Why doesn't he ask for the glyphs that will let her open the Stargate back to Earth while he's at it? 

She starts by finding out what the 'yak-thing' is actually called. A _mastadge_. Next she finds out if they know what shovels are, and if they have them. They do. Then she can finally explain that _Oneer_ will be returning to the pyramid tomorrow, and he asks for the use of many _mastadges_ , and shovels, and villagers to help. Jack sits quietly through the discussion, but Dani can tell he thinks it's taking too long. Sue her. She's having to learn a whole culture here in order to ask for the keys to the ladies' room.

"How many _mastadges_?" Dani asks him, once they've gotten that far. Jack looks blank. "The yak-things. They're _mastadges_."

"Four? Six?" He doesn't sound sure.

"And you might as well tell me what you want them -- and the villagers -- for, because that's the next thing they'll want to know." She stifles a yawn. She's exhausted and -- despite having eaten more than her fair share of the food on the tray -- hungry.

"We need to clear the rest of our stuff out of the pyramid right now if company's coming. And I want to see if we can uncover our Base Camp now that we might be able to get some help. Lots of good stuff there."

"Anything you want to give away?" She glances around the room. "Because, you know, if you can offer the villagers some kind of inducement..."

"Hey, Porro, your underwear -- that's an inducement!" Carl calls.

"A couple of cases of MREs -- wouldn't mind giving them up--" Lou says.

Everyone except Jack and Gary starts talking at once. Dani realizes that they must have lost a whole campsite in one of the early sandstorms. Sha're and Skaara are looking puzzled.

_< "Oneer wants six _mastadges _to take back to the pyramid tomorrow," > _ Dani tells Sha're and Skaara. _< "He wishes to remove those of his possessions which yet remain there. He hopes for other things as well."> _

_< "For that we must ask my father,"> _ Skaara says. _< "But I am certain he will agree."> _

_< "You are tired,"> _ Sha're announces suddenly, looking at Dani. _< "You should rest now. There are many hours left in the day. They can settle the rest of the matter later."> _

_< "Just let me finish here, Sha're. Oneer and Skaara can't talk to each other unless I am here to help them,"> _ Dani answers.

Sha're tosses her head dismissively. _< "Men do not listen to each other at all, Dana're. Your words will not matter. Come away now. You must rest."> _

_< "My name is _Dani, _Sha're._ Dani _." >_ she corrects carefully.

_< "No. You bear the sign. You are the Favored-of-Ra, as I am. Your name is Dana're. Come and rest."> _ Sha're gets to her feet, and pulls Dani to hers.

"What's goin' on?" Jack asks.

"Sha're's convinced that I need a rest break." She pulls her hands free of Sha're's. _< "Not now. I have work to do."> _

Sha're shakes her head firmly. _< "You must rest."> _ She takes Dani's arm.

"Looks like you're losing the argument, there," Jack says.

"I'm fine," Dani snaps.

"You're the one who said we should cooperate with the locals. You go along with Sha're. We'll figure out what we might be able to trade to the locals in exchange for labor, and you can help me finish up the negotiations with Kasuf later."

Dani rubs her eyes. They burn and itch. There's something here that's playing hell with her allergies. She nods, reluctantly. "I need my pack. Antihistamines."

Jack passes her the pack. She slings it over her shoulder. _< "Yes. All right. I'm coming,"> _ she tells Sha're ungraciously. Sha're starts to lead her back outside.

_< "No. Take me to where Oneer sleeps. That is where I sleep."> _

_< "You are his wife?"> _ Sha're asks.

_< "I belong to him."> _ She's too tired to clarify the statement, no matter how much trouble it's going to get her into later.

Sha're leads her to an inner room. An outer room, really; there's a shuttered window, and sunlight seeps through the slats. There are two beds -- one raised, a stuffed mattress suspended on a framework of woven ropes; the other a pallet on the floor. The room smells faintly of cigarettes. Dani sits down on the raised bed, slinging the backpack down on it beside her. Sha're kneels to remove her sandals.

_< "No, no, no. Sha're, you don't have to do that."> _ She lifts her foot out of Sha're's hands. _< "I'm not a god. I'm nobody special. I'm a person, just like you."> _ She bends down and slips off her own sandals.

_< "You are a Herald of Ra,"> _ Sha're says, frowning at her curiously. _< "You are the Favored of Ra."> _

_< "I don't think so,"> _ Dani says cautiously. _< "We're just a group of people who want to get home. We need to go back through the_ chappa'ai. _That's all we want to do." > _

_< "Do you not serve Ra?"> _ Sha're asks doubtfully.

_< "I don't know what to tell you,"> _ Dani responds. _< "The place that I come from is very different from this one."> _ She digs through the pack until she finds her antihistamines and her floppy plastic 'canteen'. There's still about a pint of water in it. She stares at it in horror for a moment (hadn't thought she'd drunk that much, and she'd emptied the other canteen, and she'd never have gotten back to the pyramid on only a pint of water), then drops a couple of pills into her mouth and washes them down with the last of the water, closing her eyes in relief. She ought to start feeling better soon. When she opens her eyes again, Sha're is holding one of the silk scarves in her hand, staring at the symbols on it, her eyes wide. She sees Dani looking at her, and stuffs it quickly back into the pack, starting to rise from her squatting position.

Dani takes Sha're's hands quickly. _< "Don't be afraid. Ra will not see."> _

Sha're's mouth curves in a bitter smile. _< "Ra sees all."> _

_< "He will not see this. Sha're, we need to find more symbols like those to go home. Have you seen anything like them here in Nagada?"> _

But Sha're won't answer. She only shakes her head, over and over, pulling her hands free from Dani's and running from the room. In the other room there's a sudden break in the rhythm of the crossing voices. Gary's querulous voice rises over the rest. Dani sighs. If Sha're tells Kasuf about the scarves, there will be trouble, and she can't just pretend to burn them. Nothing she can do except do what she has to when the time comes. For now, she'll just make sure that nobody else sees them. She pulls all the scarves out of her pack and folds and rolls them until they're a tight cylinder of cloth, then stuffs them down deep into the bottom of the backpack. Then she pulls out a Powerbar and starts to unwrap it, because she's still hungry. A moment later Jack appears in the doorway. "Trouble?" he asks.

"Sha're saw some of the writing I brought with me. It scared her." Dani shrugs. "It doesn't make sense."

"No?" Jack asks.

"The Egyptians invented writing." She sees that he really doesn't understand. But why should the most central element of Egyptian culture -- its writing -- have not only been left out of the Khefian culture, but had a taboo placed upon it? She stands up. She wishes they were home, in Jack's house -- or, if that's too much for the world to grant, that they were alone here. She wants him to hold her again. She wants to be able to talk to him without worrying that there are six soldiers (and one idiot Egyptologist) in the next room. "Is Skaara still here?" she asks.

Jack shakes his head, looking concerned. "Sha're took him with her. Don't know what she said to him. Look, maybe Sha're was right. Maybe you ought to sack out for a couple of hours."

"I'm fine," she says. 

God help her, she actually needs to talk to Gary.

#

"Gary, you've been here for two months, so you've seen most of the village, right?" she asks.

"It's like living in a third-world country. You have no idea what this place is like. At least these people have beer and wine. And the Major managed to rig up a still. Thank god for that."

She does her best to conceal her frustration. Gary goes to another planet, gets dropped into the middle of an Ancient Egypt that's been preserved -- unchanged -- for somewhere between five and ten _millennia_ , and all he cares about is being able to get drunk? She frowns. Wine and beer. The Egyptians had both, and they obviously have _some_ form of grain, but where are the Khefians getting grapes -- or any kind of fruit -- to make wine? 

Since Sha're and Skaara are gone, Jack tells Kawalsky to get her pack and they go through it. To her horror, Jack commandeers all but one of her journals and most of the Sharpies. She tries to argue. He tells her the mission is more important than her research trip, and he needs the paper for maps and notes. She looks at Gary, and for a brief moment they're in perfect agreement. It's her so-called 'research trip' that's their best chance of getting home.

She won't say so, though. Not with everyone here. 

"Gary, have you seen anything that looks like pictures?" she asks, once her personal possessions have been _looted._ "Pictographic representations of any kind? Any sort of symbols?"

"Still trying to make brownie points with your Colonel, Doctor?"

Dani closes her eyes in frustration. She doesn't need this. She really doesn't. Gary got to name the planet. Gary got to come on the mission. Gary got to _fucking maroon all of them here._ Why is he acting as if _she's_ the one who's been getting the preferential treatment?

"No. I really want to know. Gary, Egypt is your field, and everything I've seen here looks like somebody just picked up an Egyptian village from -- what? Five thousand years ago? -- and dropped it here."

He nods, slowly. She prods him delicately: doesn't he think it's odd that there's been no cultural evolution here at all? He comes back with chapter-and-verse about cultural stagnation in the absence of outside influences; she forces herself not to argue (even though he's utterly wrong).

"But they've _de_ volved, and you have to admit that's strange," she says carefully. "They haven't got any form of writing -- I haven’t even seen any representational imagery here -- and they're convinced that Ra will punish them for even _seeing_ writing. I just don't understand it. How can they live like that? How are they passing down sustainable knowledge and information?" Because oral tradition is great. A lot of cultures did-and-do very well with low literacy or a-literacy. But until you can write things down and know that your great-grandchildren will be able to read them, the past can always be changed.

By the time she's finished, Gary actually looks as puzzled as she feels.

"I really wish I knew. Dr. Jackson--"

"Dani," she interrupts him. She smiles hopefully, and -- finally -- Gary starts looking a little less sulky.

"--Dani. You're right that there aren't any images. There aren't even complex _patterns_. A few very simple patterns in the baskets and textiles, but geometric only, and much older than the rest of the culture. Nothing that could be remotely considered writing or drawing. When we first got here, the Colonel tried to get Kasuf to draw him a map. The poor old geezer nearly had a heart attack."

"Yeah." She sighs. "He tried to make me burn one of my journals after I tried to write in it. I did burn a blank one. These people are really scared."

But of what? (She doesn't know, and Gary isn't trained in field anthropology. She wonders how much actual enforcement of the taboo structure Ra has actually done. Maybe a lot. Maybe none -- after all these thousands of years -- if she assumes that Ra's visitations to Khefiu are a myth, and a second tribe is exploiting the Nagadans ancient beliefs for their own purposes. She's going to have to poke around -- carefully -- and see what she can find out.) She leans back against the wall, half-dozing, while Jack and his team reconstruct the list of items that are probably still in the buried Base Camp. Shelter halves. Sleeping bags. Weapons. Food. Listening to them, she realizes they brought equipment for at least a month. Why? They were only supposed to be here a few hours. She looks at Gary. He's as puzzled as she is.

"Whether we can get to Base Camp tomorrow or not, we have to make sanitizing the Pyramid our first priority," Jack is saying. "We can't have this Ra guy waltz in there and find it full of our stuff."

"Maybe we could take him out," Kawalsky suggests. "Set up an ambush?"

"Something to think about," Jack says. "But not without more information."

Dani takes a deep breath, trying to rouse herself to greater wakefulness. If Ra isn't just a myth by now, she doesn't think an ambush will work. Not the guns she's seen them carrying against a spaceship and whatever it might have inside it. And the Nagadans won't help (unless she can prove Ra doesn't exist, and it's hard to prove the _absence_ of a god). _'Ra will punish. Ra will see.'_ They're too terrified.

Maybe there's something that will help in the catacomb frescoes.

#

The evening's meal is a lavish affair. More elaborate, Jack tells her, than usual. Apparently it's a celebration of the fact that they can finally _talk_ to each other.

The men and the women are segregated for meals, at least here in what she's mentally dubbed the Great Hall. The women who attend (not even a tenth of Nagada's population, from what Jack and Gary have told her this afternoon) serve the men first, then eat in a separate area of the Great Hall. The red-draped object she saw before is uncovered now; Gary finally remembers to mention it's uncovered for every meal and is, in fact, a representational object; the only one in the city. It's an enormous golden disk. An Eye of Ra. A duplicate, in fact, of the pendant Dani is wearing around her neck. Catherine's pendant, the one found with the Stargate. 

It's a symbolic representation of the fact that all of these people are under the Eye of Ra.

Property.

Dani doesn't sit with the women, and neither does Sha're. She and Sha're sit on the dais with Kasuf, Skaara, and the honored guests. They are royal (Sha're certainly is, and Dani seems to have gotten a promotion recently), and though she and Sha're still serve the men first, the service they give is a token only, and once she and Sha're have finished placing the platters, they take their seats. 

Jack still doesn't like it, though this time, thank god, he doesn't make a fuss, because there's just no way around it. Dani knows that the Nagadans are already having a hard enough time trying to figure out how to fit her into their society. Forcing them to treat her as a man (so the Nagadans would see it) would cause trouble they don't need right now.

She and Sha're sit between Kasuf and Jack. As far as Dani can tell, Sha're hasn't mentioned seeing the writing in her pack, because Kasuf is as cordial as ever. And either Sha're has gotten over her earlier fear, or she hides it well. She darts shy glances at Jack and Dani all through dinner, and even touches Dani's hand occasionally, but says nothing, while -- through Dani -- Kasuf and Jack talk. (The first question Jack had her relay to Kasuf -- and she loves him for it -- was an inquiry about whether it was appropriate to talk 'business' over a meal. She gets the impression from Kasuf's response that it's a little unusual, but -- also -- that Kasuf is so pleased to be able to finally _talk_ to his strange guests that he's willing to waive convention, at least for tonight.) She translates almost without thought -- pausing only to gloss Kasuf's words when she's certain, or to offer Jack her opinion when he asks. The language comes to her effortlessly now (and -- she's relieved to see -- somewhere Jack learned to work with a translator; he stops after every few words so she can catch up, and looks at Kasuf, not at her, even when she's speaking for Kasuf). 

Yes, Kasuf agrees, he will provide _mastadges_ and workers so that Oneer can uncover his buried tents; but that must wait until after the tribute has been paid; until then, workers and _mastadges_ in the quantity Oneer requires are needed elsewhere. But after the tribute, the tribe will prepare to go into the Deep Desert for the harvest and planting seasons. There will be time then. Yes, Oneer may return to the House of Ra tomorrow. Two _mastadges_ can be spared for a task Oneer says is urgent.

The food is good, and it's plentiful, though Dani barely gets a chance to eat since she's talking almost nonstop. She knows enough to stay away from the alcohol (pregnancy aside, she's working right now), but stuffs herself on bread and several sorts of lizard and other things that might be either fruits or vegetables. She doesn't care. She's _starving._

When Jack and Kasuf finally slow down, Dani takes the opportunity to ask a few questions of her own, though not of Kasuf.

_< "What comes after planting, Sha're?"> _

Sha're smiles at her. _< "After planting comes the rains, Dana're. If the rains did not come, we would all starve. When the rains end, we know it is time to work the mines again."> _

Fields in the Deep Desert? It's possible. And (obviously) a series of cisterns or catchbasins to collect the seasonal rains. And they must have an irrigation system for the fields, since they're not (obviously) relying on the Nile, and Sha're hasn't mentioned any source of water other than the rains.

_< "Sha're--"> _ she begins. Jack taps her knee to get her attention. There's something else he wants to ask Kasuf.

#

Dani doesn't actually make it very far through the meal. The day is catching up to her, and she never did get that nap that Sha're was so insistent she take earlier. When her head drops down onto her chest for the third or fourth time, Sha're laughs and leans over to say something to Kasuf that she doesn't catch, and then helps Dani to her feet and leads her away. At least Jack and Kasuf have already settled the important matters. Maybe tomorrow she can start teaching him Khefian. But right now she's so tired she's light-headed, and so it takes her a little while to realize that she's not being taken back to Jack's room.

_< "Sha're -- where--?"> _

_< "It is the Women's Place, Dana're. Surely you have them in your land? The night is long, and you are tired, and you will not wish Oneer to bother you tonight."> _

Women's Place. Women's World. She's being taken into the Nagadan version of the harem. But unlike in the fevered fantasies of the 20th century west, the true harem was generally the place where women reigned supreme. Men -- even the so-called 'owners' of the inhabitants -- often could not enter without the permission of the women.

And right now she's too tired to protest.

They pass beneath a hanging curtain and cross a small open courtyard. Sha're drops her veils to her shoulders, shaking out her long black hair. She smiles at Dani. _< "Not far,"> _ she promises.

Beyond the courtyard, the Women's World is another warren of small rooms. Tired as she is, Dani cannot resist glancing into some of them as they pass. She sees young children -- younger than any she's yet seen -- fast asleep, watched over by nurses. Sha're follows her gaze, her own face expressionless.

They stop at last in yet another doorway -- Dani hasn't actually seen a room with a door yet -- and Sha're beckons to her to enter. Like so many of the rooms Dani has seen here at Nagada, the room is windowless. Because of the sandstorms, she supposes. The bed is built up off the floor, covered in pillows. Lit oil lamps hang from the ceiling.

Servants enter at Sha're's arrival. They help Sha're off with her clothes, undressing her down to the thin, fine, knee-length robe that is the bottom layer of her garments. Dani is slower at undressing -- she waves the servants off, wanting to do it herself -- but when Sha're is done, she helps Dani with her clothes. Sha're purses her lips at the sight of Catherine's pendant -- Dani forgot she was wearing it -- but wraps a length of cloth around it to conceal the image rather than asking Dani to remove it.

_< "Your hair. It is so short,"> _ Sha're says reprovingly.

_< "I cut it. It was longer once."> _ Though Dani's never worn her hair long, not even when she was a child.

_< "And did your father beat you when you did that? He must have,"> _ Sha're says. It's a joke. Sha're is certain that Dani's status is as favored as her own, and favored daughters are not beaten.

_< "I have no father. My parents died long ago."> _

Sha're had smiled as she teased her. Now her face grows solemn. _< "You have Oneer. When the baby comes, and it is a boy, he will make you Second Wife. He cannot set you aside then. My father will not permit it."> _

Dani shakes her head and struggles to find the words to explain 'hired consultant for the U.S. Air Force' to a woman who is -- literally -- living in the past. _< "He does not know. It is not meant to be. In my land, the man who -- owns the fealty of us both -- he... requested that we perform a duty. And so we are in each other's company. But that duty will be over once we return. Everything will be over."> _ Sudden unexpected tears fill her eyes, and she hiccups, trying to stifle a sob. She's made up her mind. She has to get out of here, get _Jack_ out of here, and get away from Colorado after that just as fast as she can. She'll never see him again. But that's the way it has to be. 

Sha're studies her. _< "Oneer will abandon you and the child?"> _ she asks.

Dani rubs here eyes dry. _< "He has a wife. He has a son. He has been kind to me. He has never meant to hurt me. I will not hurt him by forcing this child on him. Our ... master is generous. He will reward me for bringing Oneer back. I shall be able to provide for the child. All will be well."> _

Sha're doesn't look convinced. Dani isn't convinced herself, but what else can she do? Nothing else would be fair to him. 

_< "Come to bed. I will stay with you."> _ Sha're says.

The attendants help them wash their hands and feet and faces in basins of water, then comb out Sha're's hair. Then the two of them get into the bed. Dani isn't that surprised when the attendants join them. Only the 20th century has made a fetish of privacy and solitude.

She's quickly asleep.

#

It's hours later when Sha're wakes her, but Dani suspects it's the middle of the Khefian night. Jack said (confirming her guess) the days are much longer here -- 36 hours long -- and if the Khefian mining season is at the opposite side of the year from their harvest season, it's probably winter now, when the nights are longest.

 _< "You wished to see marks like yours. And I do not believe you come from Ra,"> _ Sha're whispers when she knows that Dani is awake. She puts a finger to her lips. They dress in silence. Sha're leads them out of the Women's World.

_< "I have never said I come from Ra. I would know why you...?"> _ Dani stops, unable to figure out how to finish the sentence. They're outside the Woman's World, back in the Great Hall. The remains of the feast are long-gone, and the Eye of Ra is covered again. Nagada by night is a shadowy baffling place, but Sha're moves through it with assurance. She took a torch from the bundle beside the outer door and carries it with her, but she hasn't lit it yet.

_< "Ra takes children in tribute. He does not make them,"> _ Sha're says simply, gesturing to Dani's belly.

_< "He takes your children?"> _ Dani asks sharply, and Sha're hisses -- her voice is too loud.

_< "I had a sister, once, and Skaara a brother. Their names are never spoken in our house,"> _ Sha're answers quietly. She says nothing else.

_Jack isn't going to like this,_ Dani thinks.

They pass through the Great Hall and on down a side corridor, and out onto the streets themselves. Everyone in Nagada seems to be asleep; no lights show anywhere. After a few minutes walk they are, Dani thinks, very near one of the outer walls of the city. Now Sha're lights her torch, pausing at one of the heavy clay barrels full of smoldering coals that dot the streets. She tells Dani that in the morning, the ashes will be sifted for live coals to start the morning's cooking fires; there's less danger of fire destroying the village if every hearth is dark at night.

When the torch is lit, Sha're leads her back into the warren of interconnected rooms, and, moments later, shoves at a section of wall (a pivot-door, and the first door of any kind Dani's seen), and they're in what must be a secret passageway. Sha're leads her down a few twists and turns, and suddenly the walls are covered in writing. Not hieroglyphs, but pictures. 

_< "This is forbidden, do you understand?"> _ Sha're says urgently.

_< "Yes. I understand."> _ Dani takes the torch from Sha're and steps closer to the wall. _< "Do you know what they say?"> _

Sha're hangs her head in shame and defeat. _ <"No. Only... pictures. When Memne're went to Ra, I found this place. And I swore I would stare at these pictures until Ra brought her back. Or killed me. And neither happened."> _

_< "I am sorry that you lost your sister. But I can tell you what the pictures say. And what they mean."> _

She glances back. Sha're's face is lit with angry hope. _< "Make them speak, Dana're, in the name of my lost Memne're."> _

Hours pass as Dani walks slowly along the narrow passageway, translating the pictures for Sha're. There were other torches here, left stockpiled by the ancient artists, or perhaps by Sha're herself. Sha're lights them for her, one after the other, as Dani reads. She knows that these walls were painted centuries ago -- hundreds of centuries ago -- but it's difficult not to feel that the events the pictures depict are happening now. This is a desperate message from the Khefians -- from the _Egyptians_ \-- of millennia ago, to their descendants.

Their descendants can't read it.

_This_ is why Ra has forbidden writing. Without writing, there is no history. Ra wants no one to know. No one to remember.

At the beginning the story is told on limewashed walls in careful, full-color drawings as elaborate as the ones in the pyramid. Later -- still on limewashed walls -- the drawings became monochromatic, then sketchier and sketchier, and at last they're merely scratched directly into the red rock. Then they stop being Egyptian iconography at all, degenerating into crude pictographs. Perhaps additions by a later generation which had wanted to add to the story but was no longer literate. Dani's not sure how to interpret the last of them. It will take work.

But the early parts of the story are clear.

Over ten thousand years ago, Ra came to Earth in a great heaven boat (a spaceship, Dani glosses silently). Ra brought the Eye of God (the Stargate). Ra brought the Egyptian civilization. Ra came in the form of a monster and took for his vessel the body of a young boy, the first Pharaoh (the images are plain: Ra's essence entered the body of a young boy. Dani does not know how to interpret them). He made the boy immortal through his magic (alien technology, Dani says to herself). Ra brought with him monsters, men with the heads of beasts, giant serpents, crocodiles that spoke in human voices (other aliens?) All served Ra. At Giza, Ra and his family ruled over their vast slave empire. They demanded tribute from everywhere in all the lands (on the whole planet). They killed and tortured thousands. One day Ra gathered many of the people together (ten villages? a hundred?) and sent them through the _chappa'ai_ with his... She's not quite sure what the word is ( _"victorious breaths"?_ ): this is one of the few places hieroglyphs are used, and the symbols have been combined with a plural she has never seen before -- and made them build him a pyramid in the middle of the desert, to house the Eye of God. Some of the people he took away with him again when the pyramid was completed. The rest he left here to mine _naquaadah_ for him, forbidding them to ever again read or write.

_< "Sha're, these ... creatures? The ..."> _ she points at the hieroglyphs with their strange pluralization. _< "What are--?"> _

_< "Jaffa, Dana're. They are the warriors of Ra. They do his will. All fear them."> _

_'All fear them.'_ But someone in those first generations was brave or foolish or desperate enough to defy the God Ra and his _Jaffa_ , and set down a record of who they were and where they had come from, in the hopes that someday they might be able to return home.

"Oh, god," Dani whispers to herself. "If they did that, there _has_ to be a set of Dialing Glyphs here somewhere. There _has_ to." She hurries down to the end of the corridor, past the last of the drawings, to where it becomes so narrow that she has to turn sideways and scuttle. But here, down at the very end of the corridor, down low, something has been carefully and deeply incised into the corridor wall, with all the care and skill of the first drawings.

A cartouche.

"This is it!" she says.

The rock is soft. Dust seeps in everywhere. This passageway is filled with it. It fills the marks on the wall and is mounded over the base. Of course the minimal archaeological equipment she's managed to bring is in her pack, and her pack is ... somewhere else. But she's too excited to wait. She exposes the rim of the cartouche. Its interior. She bends carefully sideways and brushes at the wall with careful fingers. 

Gate symbols. Just like the Coverstone. But different symbols.

_< "Dana're, what do you see?"> _ Sha're asks.

_< "Someone once knew the weaving symbols for the_ chappa'ai _, so that its door would open," > _ Dani says, though she knows her words will mean little to Sha're. The Khefians don't know how to work the Stargate. _< "They knew how to make the_ chappa'ai _take them home, and they made a record..." > _ She stops. The bottom one -- the seventh one -- is missing. The bottom of the cartouche is crumbled away. 

Deliberately? By accident? She doesn't know. But the seventh symbol is gone. Without it, the rest are useless.

Dani walks back to where the corridor is wider and sinks down to sit on the floor, blinking back more easy tears. She feels feverish and nauseated, the adrenaline high she's been working off of all night suddenly gone.

No way home.

With six of the symbols to work back from, they might -- possibly -- be able to find the seventh in the Cartouche Room, but it will take them months -- if not years -- to search through them all. And Jack is right: General West won't leave the Stargate at his end just sitting there. Even worse, now that she knows how much the Nagadans fear Ra -- and from what she has seen here, she no longer believes anyone would impersonate him, no matter how long it's been -- Dani doesn't think they'll help them search the Cartouche Room. If they even try, the Nagadans may withdraw their help altogether, and they need the Nagadans to survive here.

Sha're kneels beside her, taking the torch from her shaking hands. _< "You cannot leave, can you?"> _

_< "No. There must be seven symbols for the _chappa'ai _to take us where we must go. The seventh symbol is lost." > _ After a few minutes she gets to her feet. She needs to tell Jack. It isn't good news, but he has to know. _< "Sha're. Take me to Oneer. I must speak to him."> _

#

O'Neill isn't all that surprised when Dani folds up halfway through the feast. She'd been looking like she was out on her feet most of the day. Getting used to the length of the days here is rough. Her absence makes conversation a little difficult, but it makes a difference knowing they _can_ talk to each other. Teaching Skaara English is going to go a lot faster now that he's got a translator. He just hopes he can figure out how to tell someone he needs Dani back in the morning, because he's going to need her at the pyramid to show them what she's seen.

It's too damned bad they won't be able to excavate the Base Camp tomorrow, but there's no way to push Kasuf on that. At least he can clear out the pyramid. And then he's got to figure out what the hell to do next. Because he's got orders. With what Dani's said about Ra, and the fact that Ra is -- apparently -- not a dead issue, he's pretty sure he needs to take out that damned Stargate.

Thing is, that nuke he's brought is powerful enough that setting it off at the pyramid probably won't do Nagada a lot of good. Five thousand innocent bystanders.

He doesn't get much sleep that night.

Kawalsky snores.

It's nearly dawn when O'Neill hears movement in the outer room. Whispering. He picks up his boots and his rifle, steps over Kawalsky, and goes to check. Dani and Sha're are standing in the doorway. When they see him, Sha're retreats to the street. Dani follows her, beckoning to him. Outside it's cool. His favorite part of the day; he's never really liked the desert. He hears a quiet conversation between the two women; Dani is obviously telling Sha're to be elsewhere, Sha're's giving Dani advice she doesn't want. Finally Sha're walks away.

"Sleep well?" he asks, sitting down to put on his boots.

"Sure, Jack," she says, shaking her head as if it hurts. "And then Sha're took me down to the hidden catacombs and I read the secret history of the Khefian -- Nagadan -- _Abydan_ people and found out a lot more about Ra -- not only is he even worse than I thought but there's a whole _family_ of these ... whatever-he-is. Oh, and I found the cartouche with the Return Address for Earth only it's been defaced which means we're stuck here forever and that was pretty much my night how about yours?"

The last sentence comes out in a rush. It takes O'Neill a few moments to figure out what she's said.

"The Return Address Cartouche has been destroyed?"

"The first six symbols are there, Jack. Not the seventh." Her voice is very quiet. He can tell she's on the verge of tears. He's also pretty sure she won't cry. 

"That's six more than we had yesterday."

"Oh, god, don't you _get_ it? It's Project Giza all over again. Without the seventh symbol, the Stargate _won't go anywhere_. We need the Point of Origin symbol for Khefi-- Abydos."

"So we try all the symbols on the Dial Home Device until we find the right one," he says.

"Will that work?" she asks.

"You're the doctor, Doctor."

"I'm an archaeologist. I don't know. You should have brought Barbara. She'd know."

"Okay, Dani, I promise. Next mission I bring an astrophysicist."

She shakes her head again. "Ra is coming. He's not a myth. He's real." She sounds frightened, and that really gets his attention, because she hasn't sounded scared yet. Not by marooning herself on an alien planet with no way home, and not by anything else she's learned. It could be delayed shock, but O'Neill doesn't think it is. She's found out something that's finally managed to scare her, and the only thing you can do when you're in the field and one of your people starts to lose it is pretend it isn't happening and hope they can pull themselves together. Because if they can't, you're all going down.

"Fine," he says. "Tell me about Ra." He does his best to sound bored.

She (still) has absolutely no idea of how to give a briefing, but he manages to keep her on point. What she tells him is pretty bad. Ra is a monster, a tyrant, right up there with the worst of Earth's Bad Guys. He has spaceships, advanced weapons, and an army of something called _Jaffa_. He's immortal. He's got a lot of relatives who are just as bad. They all used to rule Earth -- at least up to the start of 'conventional' Egyptian history. Which means -- so Dani tells him -- that about seven thousand years ago they left, and nobody on Earth knows why. Because nobody on Earth -- except a few nut cases and Dr. Danielle Jackson -- suspects they were ever there. The Abydans don't know why either, because they were taken away from Earth before that.

"There was communication between Earth and Abydos for a few centuries, I think. They talk -- the frescoes talk -- about Gods coming through the Gate. Then -- one day -- they stopped, and Ra started coming by ship. I can't date just when. It must have something to do with the Gate being buried on the other side. I'm sorry."

She sounds calmer now. He's proud of her. "You've already done more than Meyers has."

"Please don't tell him that. He's barely speaking to me now. I shouldn't care, but ... we're going to need these people. Which means ... Gary has to listen to me."

They'll need them if he doesn't have to just kill them all. She can't get them home. Which means, if he has to set off the bomb at the Stargate, they're all going to die too.

"There's worse, Jack."

"Tell me."

"Ra doesn't just take the _naquaadah_ in tribute. He takes children. He took Sha're and Skaara's older brother and sister. They don't know what happens to the children."

"Crap."

He thinks hard for a moment. Ra ruled in Egypt. They stopped him there, with --what? Swords and spears? Nothing much fancier, he thinks. Dani will know. They stopped him and buried his Stargate with some of his -- Jaffa? -- underneath it. And Ra and all his little godlets turned tail and ran and never came back. 

If they did it there, they can do it here. 

"Okay. You and I are going to have to talk about a few things we didn't tell you back at Cheyenne Mountain. But not now. Today we have to go to the pyramid and make sure there's nothing there that tells Ra he's got company from the old folks at home."

She nods. Rubs at her face.

"You okay?" he asks.

"It's the dust. My allergies. I'll be fine."

"Okay. Saddle up."

#

Dani misses coffee desperately, but at least this morning there's tea. Real tea. Not much, and not for long, but there's no point in hoarding it; stale tea is worse. There's enough for everyone to have a cup. Real sugar instead of honey. She's suggested, reluctantly, that they save the rest of the candy bars to use as gifts. They need to buy all the goodwill they can.

Breakfast is fresh flatbread and dried fruit. Dried figs and dates, or close cousins. It comes in large shallow baskets, brought by some of the town women. Skaara comes with them, of course. Through her, Skaara and Jack have an animated conversation about _mastadges_ and shovels. Skaara promises to bring his friends with him today to help. Boys, Dani is guessing, who are too young to work in the mines.

After breakfast, she goes into the back room to switch her sandals for her hiking boots. She goes through her pack -- nearly empty now -- and makes sure her lone remaining journal and her scarf-notes are there. She'll need them today. She opens the journal and writes down the six symbols from the cartouche in the hidden passage. If she'd found the seventh last night, they could have just left.

Breakfast isn't sitting well, but she ignores the queasiness. She can't get sick now. She just can't. Her hand goes automatically to her abdomen -- her new nervous twitch -- and she pulls it away as if she's been burned. She shrugs the backpack into place and goes to join the others.

Skaara and Sha're are waiting at the stables with about a dozen boys. They look as if they range in age from maybe twelve to fifteen, but age can be deceptive in primitive cultures. Dani doubts they're older -- they'd be working in the mines everyone keeps mentioning -- but they might be younger. She wonders how old Sha're and Skaara really are.

Skaara has brought the shovels. He displays them proudly to Jack. Dani translates, but Skaara is determined to learn the English words. _Shovel._ He repeats it carefully, glancing at her face, then away. After a moment Dani realizes what the problem is. He has to watch her face -- her lips -- to learn the pronunciations, but he obviously cannot stare at a woman outside his own family. She touches his sleeve.

_< "Skaara. It is well. Did not Sha're say I was royal, her sister? If that is so, then you must be my brother."> _

Skaara looks at her to see if she's serious. Dani smiles and nods. He smiles back, relaxing, then really lights up as a new thought strikes him.

_< "Then Oneer and I are brothers as well, for you are his woman! What is the word, Dana're? The word from your land?"> _

She tells him. He repeats it carefully. This time his eyes don't leave her face. A moment later, Skaara runs off to tell this important news to the other boys.

She walks over to Jack. He's checking the _mastadge_ harnesses. The animals are loaded down with tools, food, baskets, and water. There's a well at the pyramid, but they're still carrying enough water to get all of them there and back again. Just in case.

"I hope you always wanted a little brother," she says to him.

"Matter of fact," he answers absently. "Why?"

"I just told Skaara that I'm his sister. There's no way I can teach him English if he can't look at me, and Sha're's already convinced that I'm her sister, and I can't convince her otherwise. So, since I’m your, um, _concubine,_ he's convinced that that makes the two of you brothers." 

Jack smiles faintly, but she can tell most of his attention is elsewhere. "Easier if we have an in with the Royal House. You're a princess now? How'd that happen?"

"Kasuf's women saw my tattoo. It's a pictographic symbol, you know, and--"

"They saw your tattoo?" he asks sharply.

"They dressed me, Jack. Of course they saw it."

For a moment she has his full attention. "We got a problem?"

"Other than that it seems to make me a princess? I don't think so."

"Good." His attention is gone again.

They're out through the gates before the sun rises. Jack, Charlie, all five of the other soldiers -- Chris and Deke are the two who have spent the most time outside of Nagada; Lou, Carl, and Gian have spent most of their time inside the village -- Gary, Skaara and fifteen other Nagadan boys, Sha're, and her. Sha're and Gary ride.

Sha're wanted her to ride, too. But the _mastadges_ look as if they'll rock every bit as much as any camel, and Dani doesn't think her stomach will stand for it. She walks with Jack and Skaara. Skaara is providing a running commentary about the desert -- the weather, the hunting and gathering, the herding. He points out nearby landmarks -- a line of rock that conceals caves, a distant line of mountains. She translates it all. Sometimes she has to stop and ask Skarra for a gloss on a word. In ten thousand years, new words have been added to the Khefian vocabulary. Just as often, Skaara will ask her for the English words. He's learning fast.

Skaara wants to know what Jack does back in his own land. Jack tells her to tell Skaara he's a soldier, but Dani can't -- there's no word for "soldier" in Khefian. She tells Skaara that Jack was a great warrior for the lord of his own land. They have that word, but it takes her a long time to be sure she's getting through on the concept. She wants to be certain Skaara understands that the work Jack does -- whatever it might be -- is very different from what she suspects Ra's _Jaffa_ have done here.

"Skaara wants to know if you are a great hunter," she tells Jack next.

"Oh yeah. Mighty hunter. Fish're terrified," Jack answers.

There's another long conversation with Skaara, during which she learns a lot about the Khefian ecosystem.

"They don't have fish here, Jack," she says when she's done.

"Guess we won't be staying, then."

#

It's a few hours after dawn by the time they arrive at the pyramid, but the heat isn't too bad yet. Jack sends Charlie, Carl, and Gian to see if they can locate the Base Camp. She, Lou, Chris, Deke, and Gary are to follow Jack inside. They're all carrying sacks. The boys are perfectly willing to follow Oneer anywhere. Sha're is arguing with them.

 _< "Sha're,"> _ she asks. _< "Is it forbidden for you to enter here? You said you bring the tribute here, to the _chappa'ai _." > _

Sha're looks doubtful. _< "Ra will know. It is a sacred place of Ra."> _

Dani leans close to her new sister and whispers in her ear. _< "Ra does not know all. He did not know about the pictures. Oneer will protect us."> _ Oh, god, she hopes she's telling the truth. _< "There are more pictures inside. I will show them to you."> _

Sha're hesitates. And -- finally -- nods. And smiles. She tucks her hand into Dani's. Two of the boys stay with the _mastadges_. The rest come with them into the pyramid. 

Dani thought she and Meyers could get right to work, but Jack needs her with him to translate his orders to Skaara and the boys. He and the other three soldiers go down to the Stargate and bring up the sled with the last two cases on it, and the remote probe as well. From the way they swear, the probe is heavy. She only hopes the _mastadge_ is up to it. They leave the probe and the sled by the outer doorway. 

_'We've got to sanitize the pyramid.'_ When he said they needed to do this, Jack had made it sound simple. But he wants every single scrap of material that would indicate they'd ever been there removed (she barely rescues the pages of the report of her 'expedition' before either Jack or Sha're sees them), and that's only the beginning. Not just every scrap of paper, but every smudge and footprint must be wiped away, and he wants to be _absolutely_ sure. They're all down on their hands and knees wiping the floor with rags before he's satisfied. It's hard working in the dark. They have a few flashlights and glowsticks left. Dani has her candles, but she needs to save them for the catacombs. Five candles means about ten hours of light. (Even that won't be enough for the examination she wants to do, but the Khefian torches burn fast and dirty; using them might damage the wall paintings and would certainly leave signs that they'd been used.) While they're working, Charlie comes to report. Gian thinks he's pretty sure he knows where the Base Camp is. But all that's there now is a really big dune.

"Know anything about excavating, Dani?" Jack asks.

"In soft sand?" she asks. "Too much." 

She goes to the outer doorway and looks out; Jack follows. Gian and Carl are standing at the foot of a dune, digging at the base with shovels. "They're going to kill themselves that way," she says mildly. "If they want to dig something out of a dune, they'd better be on top of it. Farther to dig, but less chance of being buried when the sand slips. And it will," she adds darkly.

"You heard the lady, Kawalsky," Jack says.

Finally they've cleaned the pyramid to Jack's satisfaction. Lou is given the task of getting the bags and sled down the stairs, and burning all the trash and destroying the ashes (she knew she was right to grab her report when she did). The boys are allowed to handle the bags. Nobody but the soldiers is allowed to touch the sled.

"Now let's go see these pictures of yours," Jack says.

Dani leads him and Gary back into the pyramid, fishing her lantern out of her backpack. Of course Sha're and Skaara follow.

#

"Why is this here?" Gary sounds both plaintive and irritable.

"I have no idea, Gary."

"Somebody had a _lot_ of free time." That's Jack.

"But you see how it diverges from orthodox iconography; even late-period iconography, and this certainly isn't that. And look at what the walls are _saying_ \--" She translates it quickly into English for Jack, her fingers skimming over the hieroglyphs. Then she glances over her shoulder at Sha're and Skaara and translates what she has just said again, into Khefian this time. A paraphrase, really, using the gentlest terms she knows. They're staring at the walls in wide-eyed awe.

"And these figures? Multiple representations of Horus and Anubis?" Gary asks.

"That puzzled me too, until I saw reference to them at another site. Apparently those are actually _Jaffa_ , which are the, um, enforcers of Ra."

_< "Jaffa,"> _ Sha're agrees, reaching out to touch the painted representation of the ranks of jackal-and hawk-headed creatures.

"Looks like he's got a lot of them," Jack comments neutrally. "There a back way out of this place?"

"I'm not sure. I didn't get a chance to explore the whole thing. There are dozens of rooms and galleries, though."

"What for?" Jack asks. 

_< "Sha're, these rooms. Do you know what their purpose is?"> _

Sha're shivers, shaking her head. _< "They belong to the Great God Ra. We go to the _chappa'ai _. We leave our tribute." > _

"I don't know," Dani says, switching back to English and trying not to sound as exasperated as she feels. Just when did she become an expert on a place she got to three days ago? "Sha're doesn't know. Maybe the, um, locals used them at some point." She won't call this place 'Abydos', and she won't irritate Gary by calling it 'Khefiu.' "Maybe Ra spent more time here once. Give me a month and a full archaeological team, and maybe I could give you a better answer."

"We don't have a month," Jack points out inarguably. 

Dani sighs. "Then I don't have an answer."

"Let's go back. I still want to see that ... cartouche," Jack says. "But we'll take a break first."

"Cartouche Room," she corrects absently. Jack cracks another glowstick; it's enough light to get them back to the front entrance -- Dani blows out the lantern. and tucks it into her pack again once it cools. 

As they walk, Jack checks behind them for footprints on the floor, but there aren't any. All the piled-up equipment is gone from beside the entrance, and they go outside. When Dani looks, she can see that the party digging at the dune has flattened the top considerably, but other than that, they haven't gotten very far, and the next sandstorm will undo all their work. Jack radios down to them, and Charlie says that the boys have taken the _mastadges_ to the well. The sun is high now, though it's still not overhead, and Jack tells them to meet them at the well for a rest break. 

When they move out into direct sunlight from the twilight of the temple's outermost chamber, the heat and sunlight press down on her as if they have weight, but even though it's hot, Dani feels better than she did this morning. They join the others at the well, and everyone eats and drinks, using the _mastadges_ for shade. 

When she lets herself think about it, there's such an unreality to being here at all, but despite the things that are strange -- the _mastadges_ , the impossibly huge, impossibly new pyramid -- being on Khefiu still manages to remind Dani of her past. She grew up on a hundred dig sites in a hundred deserts like this, her hair bleached pale by the unforgiving desert sun. Nick wasn't interested in the Middle East -- his field was in Central America -- but the rest was the same. Heat and primitive conditions. Water warmed by the sun. Strange food. In a way, Khefiu is more like home than any place has been since she was twelve years old.

"Okay, rest break's over," Jack says, after about an hour. "We don't have a lot of time if we're going to get back before the storm."

"Every evening?" Dani asks.

"Oh yeah," Jack answers ruefully.

"Better go, then. It's not far. About a mile." They get to their feet and check their canteens.

"Kawalsky, you're with me," Jack says. "Ferretti, if we're not back in two hours, load up this stuff and start for the village. The rest of you, keep digging until Ferretti tells you to stop."

"Sir," Ferretti says.

_< "Sha're, Skaara, I am going to take Oneer to ... another place of Ra. We will not be long."> _

_< "I will go with you,"> _ Sha're says firmly.

Dani glances at Jack, and gestures (there's hardly any need to translate that) inquiringly. He shrugs. No reason not to let Sha're (and Skaara) come along. "Gary, you're probably going to want to see this. It's amazing," she says.

Gary sighs, shaking his head, but he gets to his feet. He may really suck at translation and not like her very much, but with a little encouragement he's willing to be as fascinated as she is by this ... Alternate Egypt.

#

"Holy cannolli," Charlie says reverently, looking at the wall.

Most of the Khefian boys came with them, but only about half of them were willing to follow them down into the dark, and two of them turned back halfway along the passageway. So it's her, Jack, Charlie, Sha're, Skaara, and two of Skaara's friends, Ahtjo and Dhubu, when they enter the chamber itself. Ahtjo and Dhubu -- whose names mean 'Treasure' and 'Gives Light' -- are nervous, poking each other and giggling, but they're obviously determined to impress Skaara with their bravery -- and probably Jack and Charlie as well.

"I have no idea how far up they go, but they're all over the other wall, too. I paced off the room: the long walls are about two hundred feet long, the end walls are about a hundred twenty-five. I don't think they have cartouches on them, though."

She's holding up her lantern and wishing for more light when she hears a click, and suddenly a bright beam of light plays over the wall. Jack has brought a flashlight. She points up, and Jack obligingly shines his light up along the wall. She'd known -- from the way the space felt -- that it was large, but the ceiling is easily thirty feet away.

Jack isn't shining the beam where she wants it. She takes it out of his hand and points it directly upward. The ceiling is the same blue material as the walls, but it looks like the depiction of a night sky. Bright dots -- pieces of crystal? -- gleam in the light, and they're connected by shining gold lines. "I wish I had more light," she says, as Jack takes back his flashlight.

"Under the dune," he says. "Lights, generator... Don't know what kind of shape they're in by now," he adds. He shines the light along the wall, and then across the room. "How long would it take you to dial all of these?" Jack asks.

Dani laughs despairingly. "Even if I could see them? Years. But... Jack. You know what this means. Every one of those addresses has to represent a Stargate destination." And one of them must be for home. She has six of the glyphs. If she can match them with one of the cartouches -- maybe that will give her the seventh. The Point of Origin symbol that they need.

"You mean there's more?" Charlie asks indignantly.

"Yes," Dani says patiently. "More Stargates. I think there must be. There are thirty-nine symbols on the Stargate. And more than that on the Dialing Device. If it only went to one place, what would you need all those symbols for? Couldn't you just press a button? So each of these cartouches _has_ to represent the Address Glyphs for another Stargate. Like ... a subway system. There must be hundreds of them." She thinks of Chicago. New York. Three months ago she was in New York, and she'd never heard of Catherine Langford. Or Jack O'Neill.

"Hundreds of Stargates," Jack says. He doesn't sound happy.

"Ra used the one at Giza to bring people to Nagada," Dani says, staring at the wall. "Maybe he took people to these other places, too."

"Or someone did. You said Ra has relatives?" Jack asks.

"Yes. It says so at Nagada. I think ... _all_ the Egyptian Gods were ... like Ra. Aliens. Apep, Ausir, Ausat, Haru, Sutekh, Mehturt... Jack... the Egyptians had hundreds of gods."

"All out here," Jack says.

"Maybe," she answers.

Jack steps closer to the wall and shines his flashlight directly at it. The beam is bright enough that Dani can see that the blue material is translucent. He reaches out and raps his knuckles against it, then shakes his head. She can't tell what he's thinking.

"Dr. Jackson. Dani. You can't be serious." Gary is staring at her (why Gary never thinks she's serious is beyond her). "Ancient Egypt filled with aliens playing God? That's ... preposterous. Why should there be more than one? For that matter, why should there be more than one Stargate?"

"I don't know, Gary. It just makes sense. Look at what we see here. These are all symbols that are found either on the Stargate or the Dial Home Device, or both. They're organized in groups of six, just like the set on the Coverstone. They're grouped together on panels and connected to each other by lines. This is an address book. They're addresses. They have to go somewhere. If Ra is an alien, that implies an entire alien society of which he's a member. There must be others like him."

"Maybe they're all dead," Gary says.

"And maybe he isn't coming back here, either," she says irritably.

Gary's about to start arguing, she can tell.

"Time to go, kids," Jack says. He switches off his flashlight. There's another burst of nervous laughter from Ahtjo and Dhubu, and (just outside the range of her lantern) the sounds of a scuffle.

Dani opens her mouth to protest.

"Now," Jack says, reaching out to pluck the lantern out of her hand.

#

The situation now officially sucks.

What's the point of destroying the Abydos Stargate if there are _hundreds_ of them? It's not going to seal off the one on Earth. If Dani's right, there are hundreds of others that could hook up to it at any moment. Assuming she's also right about Ra and his family still being out here.

Okay. One problem put to bed. There's no point to blowing up the Stargate even if he _was_ willing to stage a big flashy murder/suicide. In fact, there's a very good reason not to. It's their only possible chance of getting the intel back through to Command that what they really need to do is bury the Stargate at their end. And fast. If they kill Ra, they buy enough time to get the Abydos Stargate to work. Whether they can get home once they've done that is tomorrow's problem.

O'Neill's never liked bullies. Is there _any_ chance at all they can take out Ra when he comes here?

He's got maybe two days to come up with something.

#

The sun is just past noon when they follow Jack out of the Cartouche Room. Skaara and the other two boys race ahead as soon as they can see the light from the doorway. Sha're walks sedately beside Dani. When they reach the outside, the heat hits Dani like a hammer and she staggers.

 _< "You will stop trying to behave as if your liver were a man's liver,"> _ Sha're tells her sternly, putting an arm around her to steady her. _< "You will ride back to the village. Your husband will not thank you for endangering the life of his son."> _

_< "I don't have a husband,"> _ Dani answers sulkily, although the word Sha're has used is a slippery one, and she's not quite sure whether it's "husband", "master", or "owner-of-a-concubine".

_< "Then you should have. Someone who will beat you,"> _ Sha're says remorselessly.

_< "It is not the custom in my land for husbands to beat wives,"> _ Dani says, pulling away.

Jack and Charlie have started ahead. Hearing her and Sha're arguing behind them, they stop and look back.

_< "Then there is no reason for you not to have a husband. And every reason that you should."> _ Sha're gestures meaningfully at Dani's -- still flat -- stomach.

_< "He does not know! And you will not tell him!"> _ Dani's not sure how Sha're could manage to tell Jack anything, without her there to interpret for her. But she already knows how stubborn Sha're is. She'd probably find a way.

_< "Soon he will know, no matter what is said or unsaid."> _ Sha're answers inarguably.

_< "We will be gone by then."> _ Oh, god, she hopes so. She knows that damned Seventh Symbol has to be here _somewhere_. The Point of Origin for Khefiu was at Giza.

"Interesting conversation?" Jack asks.

"Fascinating," she snaps.

Dani hates to even consider the possibility that Sha're's advice is reasonable (at least part of it), but she's dizzy and exhausted by the time they get back to the pyramid. Ferretti and his team haven't managed to excavate the Base Camp; she was pretty sure they wouldn't be able to. The mission would have put up their tents on a flat place, and since then there's been two months of sandstorms blowing sand over them, like an oyster building a pearl. At least whatever the sand hasn't ruined is well protected.

Jack tells her to rest while they load the _mastadges_ , but the only place there's any shade at this time of day is inside the pyramid, so that's where she goes -- up the long flight of stairs -- and by the time she gets to the top her head is pounding and she's lurching like a drunk. (Sha're would have gone with her -- undoubtedly happy to go on scolding her -- but Sha're's skills are needed to keep the _mastadges_ calm and steady.) Dani sits for a few minutes, leaning against one of the pillars, drinking warm water from a canteen (she thought the military had a lot of money. Why can't it make a canteen that keeps water cool?) before rummaging through her backpack for her lantern again. She lights it and goes down to the Stargate. The lantern's dim, but there's enough light to show her the Dial Home Device.

Jack was right, she realizes. She doesn't need to find the coordinates for Earth in the Cartouche Room. They have six of them, and the seventh one _has_ to be on the Dial Home Device, or else how could someone dial it? She sets down her pack, pulls out her journal, and opens it to the page where she wrote down the six she found at Nagada. She wedges her lantern carefully into the top edge of the Dial Home Device and looks down at it. Sixty-four symbols. One of them is the seventh one they need. And actually, since the one she needs won't duplicate any of the six she already has, that means it has to be one of the other fifty-eight. Which means, in theory, that she just needs to keep dialing the Stargate, trying each of the remaining fifty-eight symbols in turn until the Stargate engages.

And they can go home.

But what if it runs out of batteries while she's experimenting? What if it breaks? It's an alien machine older than recorded history. Something could happen.

And if they just leave ... what will happen to Sha're, Skaara, Kasuf, everyone in Nagada? Ra will still come for their children and the tribute. It isn't just right to abandon them. Maybe -- if she can figure out the Return Address -- they can bring them along with them to Earth. It's where they come from. And Ra can't get them there.

_First things first._ She's not really sure how the Dial Home Device works -- it's nothing like the enormous computer back in Cheyenne Mountain -- but Dani tries pressing the six symbols she knows, hunting them out on the dial. The shapes sink down like push-buttons, making a loud musical "clunk" that startles her terribly (but only the first time; after that she gets used to it), and as she presses each one. And they light up, which is vaguely reassuring. It means the Dialer isn't already broken, at least. She looks for the symbol for Earth -- the one they used to get here -- and doesn't find it, then chooses one at random -- starting at twelve o'clock on the outer ring; she'll work her way clockwise around both rings; it's as much of a system as any other and will keep her from dialing the same seventh symbol twice -- and presses that, holding her breath. But the symbol doesn't light, and the light in the other six slowly fades.

She makes a note and starts again. She just needs to dial this thing fifty-seven more times, and they can go home. It's a slow process, since she has to wait for the dial to go dark each time before she starts again. But they're going home.

"What are you doing down here?"

Jack's voice -- and the flare of white light -- makes her jump. She'd been so focused on the Dialer that she hadn't noticed him coming in. She blinks; the white beam plays over the Stargate, making the red jewels in the rim glow brightly.

"Trying to find a way home."

He comes up behind her and looks down at the Dial Home Device. "And?"

"Process of elimination. The six symbols that we have in the address won't repeat. I've eliminated five possible sevenths."

"So you can get it to work," he says.

"Maybe. Eventually. I think so." _If I don't break it first._

"Good. I'm going to need to get back to General West and tell him about all these ... Stargates."

Since he's here with his flashlight, she picks up her lantern and lifts the lid, blowing out the candle, and sets it on the floor to cool. Three candles left, and she hasn't seen any candles at all in Nagada, only torches. "I just hope the... I don't know how this thing works, Jack. I hope it has enough power to send us back. I hope I don't wear it out dialing wrong numbers."

"Worry about that later. Right now you and I need to talk about Ra. You said Ra ruled Earth. We know he got kicked out. Who did it? How? Why would he go? Why would they bury the Stargate? Where was its Dialer?"

She takes a deep breath to keep from demanding that he stick to _one goddamned question at a time, Jack._ "Catherine gave me a complete list of what they dug up in 1928. There was nothing like the Dialer in the catalogue, and they excavated the whole area," she says, starting with the only one of his questions she can answer (but there has to have been one. Doesn't there?)

"So. Ra? The Stargate?"

"The Coverstone said 'sealed and buried.' I'm guessing that they -- the, ah, Egyptians, the slave population, like the _Khefians_ \-- put it in the ground -- with the Coverstone over it -- so it couldn't be used. They buried it to keep Ra from coming back." She turns around to look at him, but he's shining the flashlight on the Stargate and she can't see his face. 

"You said he's got ships. Spaceships."

She wonders why they're having this conversation now, when she's just told him she can _get them home._ "According to the frescos. I don't know why he wouldn't come back in ships. But apparently he didn't."

"Maybe we scared him off. Dani..." Jack's voice is very serious now. "There were skeletons buried under the Stargate. Alien skeletons. They were ... radioactive. And they had this kind of snake-thing wrapped around their spines. Our wonks think it was some kind of second creature -- a parasite."

"You didn't tell us that," she says.

"It was classified."

"Why?"

"We were afraid they might still be out there. Out here."

"They are."

"Yeah," he says, sighing. 

"You're telling me now. Why?"

"Because... it looks like we kicked Ra off Earth way back when. And maybe we could do it here."

"And then bury the Stargate."

"Have the Abydans bury it after we leave. If we take out Ra, we eliminate the threat to Earth. And these people aren't slaves any more."

"You want me to arrange an armed uprising in two days?" she asks in disbelief.

"Can you?" He sounds interested.

_No._ The Khefians are terrified of Ra. They've been his slaves for longer than human history runs. Ra has spaceships, _Jaffa_ , and advanced alien technology. Jack doesn't even have enough guns to arm everyone in Nagada.

"Why?" she asks instead. "Jack, we-- You-- It's only going to take me a couple of hours -- three or four at most -- to dial through all the possible combinations here. And then we can--"

"If we don't start back to Nagada now, we'll be caught out by the sandstorm," he says absently. 

"I'll stay here. I'll find the seventh symbol and come back to Nagada tomorrow. I've walked it before." In the back of her mind, she's already making plans for when she gets home. Not Chicago, and not Berkeley, and she doesn't want to see New York ever again, but they offered her a job at Harvard once, and David will still write her a recommendation, she thinks. She liked Boston. It's far from Colorado, and -- if not Harvard -- there are a number of other colleges in the area. She won't be picky -- not with a baby to take care of and no academic reputation left. The Project Giza money will only stretch so far.

"Can't let you do that," Jack says, and he still sounds so calm and reasonable that it's driving her mad.

"Oh my god. _Why not_?" she demands in frustration. "Why are you being so stubborn? Don't you _want_ to go back?"

"Do you think Kasuf isn't going to mention that 'Heralds of Ra' came to visit?" Jack asks, still in that absent tone of voice.

She stares at him; he can see her even if the converse isn't true. She shakes her head slowly. "I don't really..." she says. _I have no idea._

"He'll talk," Jack says with certainty. "Or somebody will. And then this Ra-guy is going to know that somebody was here. And he'll want to know who. I would. He'll turn Nagada inside-out. Even if we can drag the probe and the sleds and all that crap back through the Stargate with us, we can't get to the Base Camp. I'm betting he'll find that. And even if I tell General West to bury the Stargate down the deepest hole he can find, that's not going to do us a lot of good if Ra's still out here with spaceships looking for us."

"Oh, god." Her voice is flat with horror as she realizes what that means. "Jack, I told Sha're where I came from. This is--" _This is all my fault. Whatever happens. My fault._

"Doesn't matter," Jack says. He reaches out and rests the tips of his fingers against Catherine's pendant; it's slipped out of her robes while she was leaning over the Dialer. "He'd know anyway. We have to assume that. So."

"Look," she says desperately. "I'll get it working. We'll take the Khefians back to Earth with us, Jack. All of them. They belong there, and--"

"And Ra's still going to show up here, and want to know where they are, and find Base Camp," Jack answers. He finally lowers the flashlight beam to the floor; in the diffuse glow she can see him shake his head. "We can't get five thousand people through this thing in seventy-two hours anyway, even if they started right now. And even if we could, we'd be leaving too much evidence behind that'll lead Ra right back to Earth."

"You're saying we can't leave," she says. "Can't leave, can't stay, can't take the Khefians with us. We have to fight."

"Got to stop Ra here, Dani," Jack says quietly. "Now. By the time we all go back, explain the situation to General West, and get a Pentagon okay ... it'll be too late." He hesitates. "I should send you and Meyers back if you can figure out how to get this thing working."

"You need me to talk to the Khefians." She knows he's on the verge of arguing with her, and the next words come out in a rush. "Look, Ra won't be here for two more days. Come back with me tomorrow. We'll get the seventh symbol. I'll talk to Sha're tonight. She wasn't ... happy ... about Ra taking her sister. If anybody else feels the same way she does, I think she'll know. I'll tell her about the uprising on Earth. Maybe I can get you your uprising after all." 

"Kasuf?" Jack asks.

Dani shakes her head decisively. "He's too ..." She's about to say 'afraid,' and stops. "He needs to keep them all alive."

Jack studies her in the light of the flashlight. She knows he can hear everything she isn't saying. It's the first time anybody ever has. People have spent her whole lifetime _not_ listening to her. It's a very strange feeling, to be listened to so intensely by a man who won't let her finish half her sentences and who -- she knows -- has no interest in any of her specialties and no idea of what she's talking about half the time.

"Is there--" he begins. But whatever he was about to ask, he doesn't finish the sentence, because Kawalsky is coming down the ramp into the Gate Room looking for them. They need to leave.

Dani rides back to Nagada with Sha're, which really isn't fair to the _mastadge_ , since it's carrying a full load without the two of them. Its swaying motion nauseates her -- it's worse than the worst camel ever born -- and Sha're speaks soothingly to her, promising her a bath when they return and telling her that she can rest soon. But Dani knows she can't. Ra is coming and she has to convince Sha're and the rest of Nagada to do what Sha're's ancestors did at Giza. To rise up against a living god.

In Nagada, the soldiers unload the _mastadges_. They leave the probe in the stable -- it's really too heavy to move easily -- but they take the sled with its mysterious cases (she knows what's in one of them, but what's in the locked one?) back through the town to where Jack and the others are staying. Everyone is hot and tired and sweaty. Dani's getting ready to go with them, but Sha're has other plans.

<"They go to bathe. You must come and bathe as well.">

"See you later, I think," she tells Jack.

"We can manage," he answers briefly.

#

Back in the Women's Place again, Sha're summons her attendants -- not slaves, Dani thinks now, but members of Sha're's extended family -- and she and Dani strip to the skin. The grooming procedure is lengthy, and accompanied by many cups of cold herb tea -- not what she drank with Kasuf; this tastes more like mint and lemon. It's sweetened with honey. There must be bee-skeps somewhere. Probably in the deep desert, along with the fields.

The other women shy away from the tattoo on Dani's back when it is exposed, but Sha're traces it with curious fingers. _< "It is the symbol of Lord Ra,"> _ she says.

_< "He is not worshipped in my land. But he is remembered. Sha're, where I come from -- it is where your people came from, a thousand thousand generations ago."> And then somehow we got rid of him,_ Dani wants to add, but doesn't quite dare. There are too many people listening. She needs to talk to Sha're alone.

_< "So we are truly sisters, you and I, Dana're. For you have come back to us from the Two Lands."> _

_< "Yes, Sha're. I have come back."> _

With help (a great deal of it), they're rubbed down sparingly with water, then more lavishly with a faintly oily, milky liquid. The Khefians make it from mastadge milk, which is apparently inedible. The liquid is heavily spiced. Dani sneezes several times, and insists on using water to wash her face, which everyone seems to consider ridiculously amusing. With Sha're's example to follow, the others quickly get over their concern about the Mark of Ra. They're happy to answer all of Dani's questions, but in return they're extremely blunt about her numerous physical shortcomings -- too skinny, too pale, too narrow across the hips, and her hair looks horrible -- but it seems to be more out of worry about her marriage prospects than malice. As she questions them, she begins to understand why.

For a man to reach Kasuf's age here in Nagada is a rare thing. The _naquaadah_ mining kills four out of ten before they have seen thirty winters (even if Khefian years are proportionally longer than Earth-years, that means almost half the men in every generation are dead in the equivalent of their early forties), and for a man to survive much past the age of forty is not common. Only men work the pit-mines: the women and the older children do everything else, including a lot of the subsistence hunting. But if a woman is to have not only children, but a _place_ , she must marry early (before her father dies) and hope that when her husband dies, one of her sons is old enough to become the head of her household. If she has no sons, nor any sons of adult age, she must either join the household of one of her husband's close male relatives -- which gives her a lesser status than his wife -- or return to her father's family. Marriage is both social and personal freedom on Khefiu, and they're worried both about Dani, and _for_. No father, no brothers, and no husband: a disaster in every way they can imagine -- with no kin, in whose house will she live when she is old?

She tries to explain to them how women live in her land -- how _she_ has lived. She doesn't get the feeling they believe her, though.

Once she and Sha're have both been oiled clean and rubbed dry (and Dani argues them out of depilating her _right this minute_ , though it's a common practice among desert cultures for men and women both and Sha're certainly has been), they're both allowed to wrap up in enormous shawls (wool, not linen). There's more tea, and a dish of candied fruit is brought for everyone to share. It's the first time Dani's seen the whole fruits that figure so prominently in Khefian cuisine; they're black and the size of large dates, and taste a little like dried plums with a smoky, licorice-y undertaste. Sha're says the _ibeh'dep_ grow beneath the sand, so Dani supposes that technically they're roots, not fruits. But it looks as if she's found out what the Khefians are using to make wine.

After the rest-break, the grooming process is finished. Their hair is oiled and then the oil is combed through it with a very fine-toothed comb, although Dani's is so short that there isn't a lot of point to the careful combing. Their hair is rubbed with linen until most of the oil is gone, then combed again. 

Linen. Flax fields. There's a whole hidden economy somewhere on Khefiu. All the Khefians can't be living in Nagada; you can't just abandon your fields for half the year. And nomads (or semi-nomads) wouldn't have the plant-based fabrics Dani's already seen; not without settled agrarian trading partners. There's so much she could learn here, and she's never going to get the chance. They'll kill Ra (if they're lucky), leave, bury the Project Giza Stargate. She'll never get to see the rest of Khefiu, or any of the worlds whose coordinates are inscribed in the Abydos Cartouche Room. All those other Egypts.

Once she's -- pretty much -- clean, and dressed again in clean clothes, Dani talks Sha're into taking her back to Oneer and the others, though Sha're thinks she ought to rest instead. They argue -- Sha're tells her that the baby needs rest and food in order to grow strong -- and Sha're has numbers on her side. Dani bargains: she will only go to visit Oneer for a very short time and then come back here to rest before the evening meal. On those terms, Sha're is willing to take her back to the others. As they walk Sha're suggests that now that Dani is here, Oneer will obviously need to live somewhere else. Someplace suitable for a woman, since obviously Dani can't just live with him and his warriors. Dani says she will speak of these matters to him, knowing that soon enough it won't matter. Ra will leave after he has received their tribute. Jack will have all the help he needs to excavate his campsite. She'll find the Seventh Symbol. They'll convince the Khefians to come back with them.

There's a faintly-astringent dairy scent to the house when she walks in. (Her ablutions have taken longer than theirs, and they're all waiting for her to arrive.) She wrinkles her nose. They're clean, but they all smell like yaks. Very clean yaks, of course, but still... 

"Yeah," Charlie says ruefully, catching her look. "I don't know what this stuff is, but it's ruining my delicate complexion. Maybe now that you're here we can talk them into setting up some showers, huh, Doc?"

"I don't think so, Charlie," she answers. "It'd use up too much water, and I'm pretty sure that Nagada survives off underground cisterns. But it's okay. I'm sure _mastadge_ milk is good for your skin."

"You're kidding," he says mournfully.

"Sorry," she says lightly. "Sha're told me. I'm pretty sure."

"Aw, Jeeze, Doc, do you have to tell everything you know?" Charlie says plaintively.

"I promise not to ask her what's on the menu for tonight."

"Here's a clue, Kawalsky: they don't have fish here," Jack says. Charlie looks first thoughtful, then alarmed.

"So what's on the schedule for tomorrow, Colonel?" Charlie asks.

Dani opens her mouth to say that they're going back to the pyramid. Jack looks at her warningly, and she closes it again. She isn't supposed to mention the fact that she's very close to finding the seventh symbol that they need. She wonders why not. Surely it would be a good thing to tell? She goes over and sits down next to him. Skaara is sitting on his other side. Sha're sits beside her.

"Maps. The city, the mines, this whole area. Skaara gave us an overview of the terrain between here and the pyramid. Draw that up. And as much about the pyramid and the area around it as you can remember."

"Don't let anyone see you," she says. "Not what you're doing, not the paper, not the markers. It's really important."

"Oh, we can be discreet. Right, guys?" Kawalsky says, grinning. The others smile. Some of them laugh. She knows there's subtext here, but not what it is.

"While you're doing that, Dr. Jackson and I are going back to the pyramid again. She's got some ideas about an easier way to excavate Base Camp," Jack lies blandly. Dani stares down at her hands, willing her face to give nothing away. She knows that Jack said they needed to fight Ra for the Khefians' sake, but six soldiers and two archeologists against an alien army are impossible odds. It makes more sense for them all just to _leave_. If they take the campsite with them, Ra can't possibly know where they've gone.

"Right, Colonel. We'll take care of things here," Charlie says. 

They begin discussing who will do what; Dani is called upon to ask Skaara for a number of things like torches (easy enough to supply) and rope (more difficult, though Skaara doesn't want to say so).

Charlie waves his hands around a lot, and makes a diagram on the floor with stones that he's scavenged from everywhere. _'Mankiewicz will go here, and Brown and Freeman will go there...'_ It isn't representational enough to upset Sha're or Skaara. 

Dani watches them making their mysterious plans. She thinks she ought to suggest taking Gary with them to the pyramid tomorrow. He's a weak link here, and if they did take him, once they found the seventh symbol they could send him through the Stargate immediately. He could talk to General West and, at the very least, Gary could make sure that no one took the Stargate away before the rest of them have time to come home. 

After a while, Sha're becomes impatient. Dani stifles a yawn. "Are you going to need me for the next few hours?"

Jack glances at Skaara. "We can get by. Why?"

"I promised Sha're I'd take a nap before dinner." And it's a promise she actually wants to keep. She spent the last two months in Cheyenne Mountain -- since the Abydos (Khefiu) Mission went through and didn't report back -- plotting day and night to get to where Jack was, and it seems now as if her body is starved for sleep. It's all she wants to do. The heat and the overlong days aren't helping.

"Okay. Fine. I'll walk you back."

#

None of the villagers pays a lot of attention to them as they stroll slowly through the town in the direction of the Women's World. They're both in native dress. They look pretty much like everyone else. Except that Jack is taller than most of the Khefian men, and she has her glasses. And, of course, nobody here has blue eyes.

"You smell better than Kawalsky does," Jack tells her. Sha're walks behind them, an approving chaperone. _('How will you get Oneer to take you as his wife if you are as thin as a boy?')_

"Mine had spices." They make her want to sneeze, and she's nearly out of antihistamines.

"Must be that 'royal' thing," Jack suggests.

"Um, I think you should know -- not that it's going to matter, I guess -- Sha're thinks you need to move to a better house. If you're going to have a concubine."

"We can put that off, right?" Jack looks uncomfortable. "Because, you know..."

She tries hard not to take his look of 'oh-god-not- _now_ ' personally, even though the Jack she's found here on Khefiu is nothing at all like the Jack of Colorado Springs. He's distant, closed-off, embarrassed by her presence (glad of the possibility to go home, she thinks, but it's nothing to do with being glad to see _her_ ). Of course, if Jack had a house-and-concubine, it would be just about impossible to keep the others from wanting concubines of their own.

"I can stay in the Women's Place until we ... go. I did last night."

"Good. You need to talk to Sha're anyway." There's a beat of silence. "Dani, are you sure you're all right?"

The question takes her by surprise (what has she done to make him think she _isn't_ all right?) She keeps her hands at her sides with an effort of will. "I'm fine, Jack," she says carefully. _I'm pregnant,_ she wants to say, but the time for that conversation -- if ever -- is gone. Now she needs to focus all her efforts on keeping him from sending her away the moment she can work the Stargate, and no man wants a clinging crying girl around.

"If you're sure," he says doubtfully.

"I'm fine," she repeats.

#

_< "It would please my father greatly if you would tell us of your wife and son."> _

Translation is like typing; you don't actually have to listen to what you're saying most of the time, and so Dani hasn't been. She's in the middle of translating Sha're's sentence into English when she actually listens to what she's saying and stops dead. 

They're at dinner, and Jack has been having a nice chat with Kasuf and his children (about their trip to the Deep Desert and what he hopes to share with them when he digs out the encampment, mostly). 

In the abrupt silence, she can hear the keening of the wind outside the Great Hall. The sandstorm tonight came early, and is unusually fierce. 

"Tell them of what?" Jack asks, because she's stopped.

_< "I cannot ask him that!"> _ she says to Sha're.

_< "Why not?"> _ Sha're wants to know. It's pretty clear this is actually her question and not Kasuf's, but it's not as if the man's deaf, and by now, everybody within earshot is listening. _< "Surely he is not ashamed of them? Or is she one of those women who wishes to be Oneer's only wife? Truly, she must be a fool!"> _ Sha're says haughtily, tossing her head.

"Dani?" Jack asks.

"Ah... Sha're -- and Kasuf -- want to know about your, um, family."

"I'm descended from a long line of Irish kings."

She rolls her eyes. "Try to remember that they would take that absolutely literally. No. They ... they want to know about your..." she hesitates "...wife."

Jack seems to withdraw, although he hasn't moved. "You told them I was married."

"Jack, I have to _belong_ to somebody here!" she says in exasperation. She lowers her voice with an effort; Kawalsky is staring. "They all know you're the leader; it has to be you, and Sha're wanted to know -- that first day -- if you were my husband. I told her that you had a family back in your own land. I saw... at your house..."

"You saw the pictures." His voice is flat.

There's something wrong here, badly wrong (more wrong than her seeing photographs that were openly displayed; more wrong than her telling her guesses to the Khefians as truth), and she can't imagine what. "Just ... lie to them, Jack," she whispers. "They won't know."

"No," he says, and his voice is hard. "Tell them exactly what I say to you. _Exactly._ "

She nods, swallowing hard.

"I had a wife once. Her name was Sara. We had a son. His name was Charlie."

The names give her trouble -- there are no "S" or "L" sounds in Khefian -- but she manages. Sara becomes _Sharai_. Charlie becomes _Ka'resh_ \-- the closest Khefian can render to "Charles" -- because she needs to avoid the royal "re" suffix. 

"We're divorced now. My son is dead."

She glosses 'divorce' easily -- she was expecting that, and tells Sha're and Kasuf that Jack and his wife no longer live beneath the same roof -- but his next sentence stops her. She stares down at her hands.

"Finish," Jack says.

_< "The boy is dead."> _

_< "It is a hard thing to lose a child,"> _ Kasuf says, nodding gravely. _< "Does Oneer know where he lies?"> _

She thinks of Kasuf's children, taken by Ra, and does not translate the question for Jack. _< "Yes, goodfather. Oneer knows this thing."> _

_< "Then it is well,"> _ Kasuf says, nodding. _< "And he will have other sons."> _

_< "I am certain that this is so,"> _ she says. She wants to apologize to Jack, only she's not sure for what. She's not sure whose fault any of this is, or even if there's fault.

"Kasuf expresses his condolences," she says quietly. She can't look at him.

After a moment, Jack touches her knee. "You couldn't have known," he says in a low voice, and in both words and tone she hears a grudgingly-accepted need to _manage_ her so that he won't lose her usefulness. Because she's weak. Unstable. Unpredictable. Crazy.

"I'm so sorry." She takes a deep breath, willing the tears back.

"Is there anything else I need to know?" he asks.

"I told Kasuf you know where-- Where he's--"

"Yes."

#

_< "You did not know of the death of the boy?"> _ Sha're asks.

Dani doesn't have any appetite after that. What she really wants to do is tie one on with the local beer, but although she doesn't know much about pregnancy, she knows you aren't supposed to drink alcohol. She sits, head down, holding her cup in her hands to make it look as if she's still eating, speaking only when she's called upon to translate.

Sha're gets to her feet to leave as soon as the main dishes are taken from the table, even though there's another course being carried in. Dani's grateful to get out of there, and more grateful than she would ever have imagined to go back to the Women's Place. Here in Sha're's rooms there are half-a-dozen women with them; turning down the bed, trimming the lamps, even one standing beside them, brushing Sha're's hair out for night. 

_< "I thought that the boy Ka'resh was with his mother. I knew they -- she -- did not live beneath Oneer's roof. He did not speak of his family to me."> _ During the two weeks that made up the sum total of their entire relationship, and if she tries hard enough, Dani can count the days they actually spent together on the fingers of one hand.

So it's time to face facts (something she's always been good at). All there ever was between them was sex; that she imagined there was anything more was kindness on his part and desperate self-delusion on hers. She needs to admit that _now_. Because delusion or not, she _does_ love him -- it's sick and stupid, but she does -- and real love means wanting the very best for the other person, not what would make you happy. For that reason, the best gift she can give him is her absence. Not an unplanned child he can't possibly want. Not when his own son is dead.

_< "I know he is angry with you, but you must tell him of the child, Dana're. He will forgive you everything,"> _ Sha're says coaxingly. _< "If there is no other woman beneath his roof, you will be First Wife."> _

Dani takes a deep breath to keep from laughing out loud. She wishes it were that simple. _Is_ Jack angry -- or did she just finally see him clearly? She doesn't really know, and it doesn't matter. She shakes her head. _< "I must speak with you, Sha're."> _ She touches her chest, where Catherine's pendant lies concealed.

Sha're's eyes flick to the woman standing at her side. There is no privacy here. _< "It will wait. You must sleep now."> _

#

Dani isn't surprised when Sha're wakes her in the middle of the night. She's not sure how long she's slept -- have the Khefians adapted to a 36-hour day in the millennia of their exile? -- but however long it is, it doesn't seem to be long enough. Sha're has to pinch Dani's earlobe sharply to rouse her, covering her mouth with her hand to keep her silent. Once she's certain Dani's awake, they clamber out of the bed -- over sleeping bodies -- and Sha're helps her to dress by the light of the single hanging lamp. Once again, silently, they make their way from the women's world.

 _< "Sha're, what time is it?"> _ Dani whispers once they're outside.

_< "Nearly dawn, sister. But we have a little time to be private together. Come. Let us go to the hidden place."> _

They're crossing the main street of Nagada, heading toward the entrance to the catacombs, when there's a sudden loud sound from the direction of the city gates. It sounds like an explosion, and that sound is overlaid with others, a kind of rhythmic staccato _zapping._

And screams.

_< "Jaffa!">_ Sha're gasps, grabbing Dani's arm.

_< "Jaffa? Ra's Jaffa? _Here _?" >_ Dani spins in place, trying to figure out where Jack's house is from here, but Sha're grabs her arm, dropping the unlit torch, and hauls her off her feet, running toward the entrance to the secret passage. "Sha're! No! I have to get to Jack!" In her agitation Dani uses English instead of Khefian, but Sha're pays no attention. She's desperate, and her desperation lends her strength. 

_< "We must hide!"> _ Sha're drags Dani after her, her grip hard enough to hurt.

The screaming is louder now. _< "Please, Sha're, please!"> _ She has to get to Jack.

_< "The baby, Dana're! If you will not save yourself, save Oneer's child!"> _

Dani's thought about the baby constantly from the moment she knew she was pregnant, but until this moment it was never a person whose life she had to save. Suddenly she imagines a boy who looks like _Kha'resh_ , a girl crying silently in the night because her family is gone, and Sha're uses the moment of stunned panic to drag her onward, through the darkened streets. Over the housetops, in the distance, Dani sees blue-white flashes, like strobelights. 

They reach the chamber, the passageway. Inside, with the pivot-door closed, it's utterly lightless. Sha're clings to her with desperate strength, obviously terrified that Dani will go rushing right back out again. It's quiet here, the only sound the two of them panting for breath.

_< "They will not come here,"> _ Sha're whispers. Dani can feel her shaking.

_< "Why are they here? How are they here? Sha're, you said-- You said-- The tribute was to be paid when the moons were full. In two days..."> _

_< "Yes!"> _ Sha're agrees vehemently, and that's when Dani realizes: _She asked the wrong question._ All along she's asked the Khefians when the tribute to Ra was paid. She never asked them when Ra _came_ to Abydos. Ra is here now. Not two days from now. _Now._

They're out of time.

_< "He does not come on the day of the tribute, does he?"> _ Dani asks slowly, her eyes filling with furious tears, and she feels Sha're shake her head silently.

Suddenly there's a sound loud enough to reach them even here. It's jarring in its familiarity: machine-gun fire. Dani makes a whining sound of despair deep in her throat, and sinks to her knees. Sha're kneels with her, cradling Dani's head against her shoulder. "He'll kill them. Oh, god. He'll kill them," Dani whispers. 

Sha're doesn't understand the English words, but she understands Dani's tone well enough. _< "But you will live,"> _ Sha're tells her, repeating the words over and over. _< "You will live."> _

#

Dani doesn't know how long the gunfire goes on -- after a few minutes she can't hear it any more. She pulls off her glasses and presses her face into Sha're's shoulder, and does her best not to cry out of shame and frustration and grief. She's certain Jack is dead (that all of them are dead), and all because of questions she didn't ask. After a while she starts to smell smoke. Nagada is burning.

It's hard to tell how much time passes while they're huddled here in the dark, but after a while Sha're sighs and stirs. _< "Let us go, Dana're,"> _ she says, getting to her feet. _< "The visitations are never long. We may safely go forth and see what must be done for those of our people who yet live."> _

_< "Why did they come?"> _ Dani asks wearily, rocking back on her heels and shaking out her robes so she can stand. _< "We cleaned out the pyramid. No one should have known we were here."> _

_< "Who knows why Lord Ra's Jaffa do anything?"> _ Sha're asks, her voice rough with hate. Dani feels Sha're's hand in the darkness, reaching out and feeling for hers. She takes it and lets Sha're help her to her feet.

Even now, when they leave the secret passage, Sha're is careful not to let them be seen. Dani winces and blinks at the return of light. It's not from the sun, not yet -- a thirty-six hour day means eighteen hours of day and eighteen hours of night -- but from the fires burning in the street. Sha're pauses in the outer chamber to adjust Dani's veils carefully. The smell of smoke is stronger here.

The moment they're out on the street, though, Dani realizes Sha're didn't need to bother being careful. Not today. Today Sha're could have ridden a _mastadge_ out of the catacomb and nobody would have noticed. There's a low pall of black smoke hanging in the air. Nagada is a city made of mud brick, just as houses were along the banks of the Nile five millennia ago -- mud strengthened with straw and twigs and animal hair and even rags -- and today everything in Nagada that can burn is burning.

They're near the north wall here, and apparently that means they're away from the worst of the damage, but the closer they get to the center of the village, the more destruction Dani sees. The upper stories of buildings are just ... blown away ... their interiors burning. Smoke coils up out of windows. Overturned fire-barrels spill ash and coals across the street. 

And there are dead. Dead everywhere.

When they reach the main street, Dani knows there are dead before she sees them. She hears the women of Nagada wailing for their dead ( _In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not..._ ), and it's a familiar sound, a sound from childhood, and for a moment it makes her want to rip off her veils and claw her face and sit down in the dust and howl along with them. Instead she bites her lip until it bleeds. She can't believe that anyone here would have done anything to _oppose_ Ra's Jaffa, but the street is filled with the dead and those who are mourning them. Dani stares, stunned, wondering what's wrong with this picture -- aside from everything -- for almost a minute before she realizes: there's no blood. She can smell smoke and death and burning flesh, but there's no blood. She takes a step toward the nearest body. Still unclaimed. A Nagadan, and she hates herself for feeling a pang of relief. But...?

Sha're grabs her wrist. _< "Dana're! We must go to my father! Or--"> _ She stops, and Dani wonders who will rule in Nagada now if both Kasuf and Skaara are dead (if they are dead, Sha're has no one. Not father, not brother, not brother's household to shelter her). 

The fires are worse toward the gate, but they're bad everywhere; the wind rises with dawn and the sky is filled with flying sparks. The Nagadans can't do much about a fire except pour sand on it, and they can't get out of Nagada to get any. There's a fire in the direction of the gate, and as she peers at it, Dani realizes that it's not just _in the direction of_ the gate, it _is_ the gate. The Jaffa blew up the gate, and the wall, and shot their way down the main street. And when the sandstorm comes tonight, it's going to come right in.

Skaara finds them before they find Kasuf. He's been crying, and his cheeks are streaked with kohl and smoke. To Dani's amazement, he flings himself into her arms. _< "Oneer is a great warrior!"> _ Skaara cries. _< "I will avenge him! I swear it!"> _

Sha're twists her hand into his hair and yanks him free, then slaps him across the face with her free hand as hard as she can. Only the fact that she's still holding onto his hair keeps Skaara on his feet. _< "Fool! Child! Will you see Oneer's woman and child dead for your pride? Hold your tongue!"> _ Sha're's tone is furious, but she keeps her voice low. Dani's still reeling from Skaara's words (you don't avenge somebody if they're still alive; Jack is dead, and she never got the chance to tell him she was sorry) when it occurs to her sharply that if Ra's Jaffa have just trashed Nagada and killed the rest of the people that the Nagadans think are the 'Heralds of Ra,' she's worn out her welcome here in a decisive way. 

Skaara stares at Sha're, wide-eyed and shocked. _< "Does Kasuf yet live?"> _ Sha're asks, and Skaara nods jerkily. _< "Then take us to him."> _

What Dani wants to do right now is curl up in a corner somewhere. Mourn. Think. And she knows she doesn't have time. She slips her glasses off and tucks them into her sleeve and pulls her veil over her face and hair as far as she can. She needs to hide her blue eyes.

#

The Great Hall is being used as a makeshift hospital. Kasuf is moving among the injured, offering what comfort he can. Dani scans the faces of the men and boys lying on the pallets on the floor -- there are no women or children here, except those women tending the victims -- but sees no one she recognizes. All dead, then. She takes a deep breath. When Kasuf looks up and sees Sha're, he smiles in relief.

Dani is doing her best to make herself inconspicuous, but of course Kasuf sees her too. She's not sure how to interpret his expression. She been desperately trying to think of what she should do now (what would have made Jack proud of her); she hasn't dared to ask Skaara for details about what happened to the others out on the street, and she can't ask him here, so she still doesn't know _what happened._ But she's certain Kasuf will throw her out of Nagada for this, and at that he'd be merciful. 

But there's a child depending on her to keep it alive in any way she can. And -- just as imperatively -- she knows she _has_ to get back to Earth, because there's no way she can kill Ra, so she has to warn General West that Earth is about to be invaded by its former overlords. Her equipment -- lantern, notes, scarves, canteen, sunglasses, boots -- is still in Sha're's rooms, and if Kasuf will let her take some of the soldiers' canteens as well, she can carry enough water to get back to the pyramid. Her lantern will give her enough light to try all the Dial Home Device combinations until she finds the one that will make the Stargate work. She'll need a place to hide until Ra leaves again -- Skaara mentioned caves yesterday -- but ... what if Ra doesn't leave?

_< "Daughter,"> _ Kasuf says, crossing the floor to them -- to Sha're, really -- and holding out his hands, palms down.

Dani hasn't been here long enough to build a library of gesture, but Sha're's response is oddly familiar. She takes both of her father's hands and kisses them, then raises them to her forehead. Fealty gesture. Submission gesture. The _paterfamilias_ of Ancient Rome wasn't a patch on the patriarch of any desert tribal culture ever born. Dani's sure Kasuf loves his daughter dearly, and she knows Sha're loves him. And Kasuf is a kind man, but within the terms of her own culture Sha're is-and-isn't property.

Kasuf turns to Dani, his face expressionless now. She holds out her own hands, palms up, carefully and cautiously, so that if she's guessing wrong he can simply pretend not to see and he won't lose face. She has her head tilted down, so she isn't gazing directly at his face, but she's watching him through her lashes.

Kasuf places his hands in hers, watching her as carefully as she's watching him. It's the first time she's touched him. His hands are warm, dry, callused. Even the ruler in a Bronze Age society does manual labor. She raises his hands to her lips and kisses them -- carefully, ceremonially -- then raises his hands to her forehead, copying Sha're's gesture. _I am but a woman. I am property._

Kasuf relaxes, and he smiles at her. _< "Come, Dana're. Sit. You must consider the child."> _

_'I have to belong to somebody here, Jack.'_ Dani's not quite sure what she's just done, but maybe it was the right thing.

#

Nearly all of the women have spent the last several hours collecting the dead -- it's a desert; you don't leave bodies lying around. Sha're isn't allowed to participate in that -- either because she's unmarried or because she's royal; Dani isn't sure -- but there's plenty of work to do in the hospital. Dani helps where she can. Most of the injuries are a weird kind of burn that Sha're says is "God-lightning," but some are more conventional burns caused by fire. There are a few broken bones from falls.

Dani wants to ask what's going on, what happened, where are the bodies of the people who are her closest kin in this alien Egypt. Sha're wants her to keep her goddamned mouth shut, but Dani simply can't, and so to keep from talking about things that will be too dangerous to speak of, she and Sha're talk about the funerary rites. The royal dead are inhumed. Anyone else is excarnated. Normally the Nagadans use scaffoldings in the fashion of a sky-burial, but today there are too many dead, so they'll simply take the bodies out away from the village and lay them on the sand. 

About two hours after Sha're and Dani first arrive in the Great Hall, the funeral party is ready to go. There are prayers that Kasuf must say so that the ghosts of the dead don't try to come back into the city and bring illness to the living (Sha're keeps Dani away from any of the injured who look as if they might die, since their ghost might try to enter into the body of her unborn child, causing her to miscarry). Skaara goes with Kasuf (to learn the prayers), and so does Sha're -- nearly all the adult women of Nagada go, wailing and lamenting and carrying the dead on litters. Because of her pregnancy, Dani stays behind. Right now half the able-bodied men of the village are out in the desert trying to chase down the _mastadges_ , and the other half are trying to salvage the wreck of the village. The boys are trying to gather up the goats, and the girls are either cooking or tending the youngest children. Everybody is completely preoccupied. This is Dani's best chance to look for Gary (and to look for the others, because Sha're wouldn't even let her _ask_ about her own dead). 

She slips out of the Great Hall and makes her way toward the rooms that Kasuf set aside for Jack and his men. There isn't much damage in this part of the city, aside from that caused by fires. In the street, her eye is caught by a gleam of gold in the dust. She stoops down and picks it up. Brass. A shell casing. She tucks it into a fold in her sash. She reaches the rooms and ducks through the curtain over the doorway. The two crates and the sled they brought back from the pyramid yesterday are still in the corner. The one with the guns is open. Rifles are stacked against the wall; there's a box of ammunition dropped on the floor. 

"Gary? It's me. It's Dani." There's no answer. Not here. Alive, then (she has to hope). She wonders where he's hiding and when he'll come out.

She walks over to the crate and looks inside. It holds boxes of ammunition and ... things that aren't guns, but are obviously weapons. Grenades, Dani thinks tentatively, and several something elses that aren't grenades. The boxes have been dug through in haste. She doesn't touch anything, but she closes the lid.

The second crate is still locked.

She goes into Jack's bedroom. It shows every sign of having been vacated in haste; his robes are still here, and so is his jacket and his beret. His sunglasses are on the floor. She sits down on the bed and then curls up in the middle of it, wrapping her arms around her knees and closing her eyes tightly. The bedding smells of tobacco and sweat and faintly-rancid _mastadge_ -butter. Of Jack, and Dani wishes for a future, a world, a life in which she could see him again, in which she knew all the right things to say to be somebody he liked -- and oh god, doesn't _that_ sound pathetic? But she's old enough now to realize that "you're special" is just another way of saying "you're going to be all alone until you die," and she knows she's a genius freak, but she's still human.

She wishes for a future where her life expectancy wasn't probably a week at best, where Earth isn't doomed, where she isn't going to be killing her unborn child when she dies, where she isn't condemning the Nagadans to be slaughtered by Ra if she runs back to Earth to warn General West. And their future isn't any brighter if she stays, and she's _on the clock_ , and the Nagadans' only hope of survival now is coming back with her through the Stargate, and persuading them to come will take time that she doesn't have... .

Five thousand in Nagada. Billions on Earth. And _what if General West doesn't believe her?_ The horrors of the choices she has to make now are too vast for tears.

She has to move, go, do, because there's nothing left but motion, hiding, fitting in, until she decides who and what she's going to betray this time and how she's going to do it. She uncurls herself and sits up. Her glasses are spattered and fogged, and she realizes she's been crying again. Her mouth tastes like smoke and salt. She gets up and searches the room until she finds what she came for -- two canteens, still full -- and starts to leave. Then she thinks again, goes back, and collects all the bits of paper -- letters and photos and tiny scraps of paper with penciled notes -- and also takes possession of all her blank journals and Sharpies again. 

There are three doorways leading off the main room. The next room is bigger and has no windows. Five people sleep (slept) here. She collects four more canteens (empty) and a rucksack big enough to hold all six, and does another search for paper and print (turning up an actual _magazine_ and she doesn't care that it's porn, but it's _print_ ). 

Gary had a room to himself; it's so tiny it can barely hold a sleeping mat. It smells rankly of beer and sweat, and her stomach heaves. Gary was also keeping a fucking _journal_ , and did he think Kasuf would give him a free pass just because it was in French? Dani takes a shaking breath. Nagada was nearly burned to the ground today, and Dani knows it wasn't because Earthlings brought a copy of _Hustler_ to Khefiu, _but the Nagadans won't know that._

On any day but today, she'd stuff the contraband into another of the knapsacks and hide it until she could burn it later. Today she doesn't want to take the risk. She needs to burn it here. How?

Jack smokes. (Smoked. Jack is dead.) And he was awakened in the middle of the night.

She has to search his room again for almost fifteen minutes before she finds his lighter, tucked under his mattress along with half a pack of cigarettes. She leaves the cigarettes where they are and brings the lighter out into the main room. She doesn't mind burning Gary's journal -- since his notes suck -- but it nearly breaks her heart to burn all those nearly-unused journals. And the damned magazine with its slick coated paper almost won't burn at all. But she manages. The floor is hard-pounded clay; that's what lets her rub the ashes against it until nothing remains but the binding of the journals and a few metal staples. When she's done, her hands are black with ash and her heart is pounding with fear. Not fear of Ra, or even of his Jaffa, or (for that matter) of the fact that Earth is about to be invaded by _aliens_ unless she can do something she's still not sure completely sure is possible and make choices she never thought she'd face. No. Of the fact that she's all alone and walking through a cultural minefield here, among gentle friendly people who will kill her if they think they have to in order to protect themselves, and Dani can't even say they're wrong to think that way. And the _best part of all of this_ is that half the mines she's trying to tap-dance around right now have been buried for her by the idiot unqualified Egyptologist Jack insisted on bringing with him in the first place, and if he'd only brought her instead of Gary they wouldn't even be _here_ right now.

And Jack would be alive.

She takes a deep breath and goes to find a blanket to scrub her hands clean of ash, and picks up the rucksack with the canteens, and goes back to the Great Hall to do what she can to help.

It takes six more hours of quiet eavesdropping before she can piece together the story of what happened last night. The kitchen is a good place to pick up gossip, if Dani concentrates on being quiet and small and doing all the tasks nobody else wants to do. Cleaning and chopping vegetables for the soup. Grating and grinding spices. They'll all be on short rations for a while; last night's attack seriously depleted the Khefian pantry. Sand-turtle has to be cooked immediately after it's killed or it's inedible; the flocks were scattered by the Jaffa, and very few forms of meat preservation work _really_ well in the desert just to start with.

The women discuss the attack of the Jaffa in the same way that farmers might discuss a plague of locusts. Something that just happens every now and then. They don't call it an 'attack', of course. They call it a 'visitation.' In the night, they received a _visitation_ from the servants of the Great Lord Ra, who knocked down most of the wall (with magic) and set fire to half the village (with magic) and slew several hundred people (with magic) and then left. While the women are rehashing the details, Dani she finds out that Jack was taken from Nagada alive.

_< "Hey'a, for all that Baati said that Metit said that Odjit said -- because Panya told _her _and said it was never to be spoken of -- that the strangers who came through the God's Door were not from Great Lord Ra, did I not see with my own eyes Oneer wield magic such as only the servants of the God may call to their hands?" > _

Dani doesn't know who the speaker is; she knows the names of the women in the kitchen -- Wosirit and Tameri and Umya and Shuba and Rehma and Nubiti -- but not who's who. She's exhausted by grief and lack of sleep and wired with terror, and things keep fading in and out. The women's chatter is remarkably cheerful -- considering the fact that if each of them hasn't lost a family member today, they undoubtedly know someone who has -- but Dani already knows that life on Khefiu is hard. It isn't that these people don't grieve -- she's seen that already -- but that life is too short and too uncertain for them to be able to invest a lot of energy in grief. She needs to look as if she's doing the same. She keeps her back turned, concentrating on turning large lumps of salt into ... smaller lumps of salt in a mortar, an appliance that's gone unchanged since the dawn of human history. Just like the Nagadans.

_< "Indeed, it is so. And yet -- in the end -- the God's Jaffa struck him down, and all who fought at his side, even the pale man with the pieces of glass upon his face."> _

_< "But not to slay!"> _ the first woman answers immediately. _< "My Baruti saw! All were carried away by the servants of Ra -- and the God has no use for carrion."> _

Dani hears the hum of voices behind her and the women in the kitchen all concede the speaker's -- she thinks it's Wosirit -- argument. Yes, the Jaffa would not take dead bodies away with them. Therefore the strangers -- strangers who fought against the servants of the God with magic and lived -- were still alive. 

Jack is alive. 

A prisoner of Ra. 

Dani thinks about the hieroglyphs at the pyramid; the secret paintings at Nagada. About Ra -- ancient, alien, psychotic, and cruel.

Then she runs outside and throws up.

She's still braced against the wall -- gagging and spitting and trying to hold her robes and her veil out of the way, and not fall over -- and not burst into _tears_ \-- when Sha're finds her. Dani yelps in surprise and starts coughing when Sha're puts a hand on her shoulder.

_< "I, only I,"> _ Sha're says. _< "Are you ill? You did not touch any of the dead, did you?"> _

It takes Dani a moment to remember why Sha're is asking. _< "No. I touched nothing unclean. Sha're, Oneer was taken alive from Nagada by the Jaffa."> _

_< "Come. Sit."> _

There's a bench just outside the kitchen doorway. This alleyway is used for tossing slops; what the village dogs don't eat, the sun dries to dust. Dani sits; the awning that should be here is mostly gone, but the alley is so narrow that it doesn't get much sun even at midday, and that's still hours away. The bench and the wall behind it are hot, but Dani welcomes the heat; she feels cold.

Sha're goes inside and comes out with a large clay cup. _< "Drink,"> _ she says.

Dani uses the first several mouthfuls to rinse and spit; its how she discovers that Sha're has brought her a cup of watered beer. She supposes a little won't hurt, and the Egyptians conquered the world on beer and bread. Even cut with water it's thick and yeasty; fermented barley without the tang of hops. When the cup is empty, she sets it aside, and Sha're takes her hands. 

_< "Now,"> _ Sha're says. _< "You must set your man from your thoughts. Perhaps he was taken from Nagada alive, but he is dead now; if that is not so, it is still the truth you must hold in your heart. Think of your child and his."> _

Dani closes her eyes and groans. _< "How can I? Everyone here knows who I am. I cannot hide my face -- my eyes--">_

_< "Yes,"> _ Sha're answers firmly. _< "All know. You are my true-sister. You are Kasuf's daughter. He took you beneath his hands. All saw. Tomorrow we will send the tribute to the House of Ra, and Lord Ra will be satisfied, and he will leave us in peace. Then we will go into the Deep Desert, and our father will find you a good man to care for you and the child."> _

_< "Truly I wish it could be as you say,"> _ Dani says. If Jack is dead, there's nothing on earth on Earth for her (isn't, wasn't, really, whether he was alive or dead; this just makes things clearer). She wants nothing more than to accept what Sha're is offering her: home and family and _place_ that all feel more like home than anything she can remember.

_< "Can it not?"> _ Sha're asks, smiling at her.

_< "There is... I must not speak of it here, but you must hear. You must help me speak to Kasuf."> _ She rubs her eyes. They're swollen and they itch. Tears. Smoke. Dust. And whatever goddamned thing she's found to be allergic to _here._

Sha're tugs her hands gently away from her face. _< "Do not rub them, Dana're, they will only get redder,">_ she says firmly. _< "Come, then. If you will not speak, you must cook.">_

Jack said (and oh god every time she thinks of him Dani feels her eyes swell with more tears) there are five thousand people here in the village, and certainly the Great Hall can't hold that many. Today the Great Hall is half hospital, half soup kitchen, and like a soup kitchen, the kitchen women never stop cooking, not once. At least they only have to do it in shifts, and when a new group of women enter the kitchen, Dani and Sha're leave.

Sha're says (warning her) that the possessions of Oneer and his people belong to her now, but the place where they lay does not, so Dani goes back there with Sha're and Skaara (and she's _very_ glad she went earlier). She intends to give all of the things away (except the two crates; she wants Kasuf to bury those), but on their way there, Skaara talks about the village gates. 

The industrialized West -- the modern world -- prides itself on its ability to get things done fast and well, as if the past and the so-called "third world" couldn't and can't. But before sunset today, the broken wall will have been repaired, and there will be a new gate in place. The wall is being assembled from bricks and even stones cannibalized from houses in the village (it doesn't matter if you have a house if you're dead in the sandstorm, and that's one of the reasons the guesthouse is being cleared) and covered over with several layers of clay made with precious water; this is the wrong time of year for brick-making. To make the gate itself, the workmen are stripping Nagada of everything they can possibly use, and rope is always the hardest thing to make and make well in a primitive culture (Dani saw coils and coils of it on the sleds the mission took through to Khefiu, and it's all at the bottom of a sand dune right now). She doesn't have any rope to give, but the shelter halves Jack's team brought with them are nylon, weatherproof, and nearly indestructible. Cut into strips, they might be almost as good.

She collects all of them, and the three of them take them to the eastern wall. Dani has more trouble glossing "nylon shelter half" in Khefian than she does convincing the Nagadans to use the alien material. It makes her wonder: if the Nagadans are that pragmatic, what in their experience is making them hold on to their death-and-burial taboos so strongly? Is it some experiential cause? Or is the practice something imposed from the outside? (She will use anything she can drag to the surface of her thoughts to distract herself from her grief.) When she and Sha're finally leave the worksite; Dani is unable to conceal her yawns -- even though the sun is just now nearing noon -- and Sha're steers her in a familiar direction. Today it's only the two of them in Sha're's rooms -- the other women are cooking, tending the wounded, or doing one of the thousand other necessary things to repair last night's destruction.

_< "I need to talk to you,"> _ Dani says, yawning again. _< "You have to listen to me. All of you need to leave Nagad--"> _ A jaw-cracking yawn interrupts her.

_< "Yes, yes, yes,"> _ Sha're says, undressing her. _< "We will talk. When you are _awake _, sister." > _

_< "No. Sha're. _Listen. _Ra will come back." > _ She sits on the edge of the bed in her undershift and clutches at Sha're's hands. The floor is cool beneath her feet. It's made of glazed tiles; an unimaginable luxury. _< "Please, please, please. Listen to me. Please. He took Jack and Charlie and the others alive. He will know they do not come from this land. He will come back with great anger. You have to leave. You have to come with me."> _

Sha're frowns, studying Dani's face. _< "The servants of the God have not returned yet,"> _ she says uncertainly.

_< "They will come. Oh Sha're, they will come here, and Ra will-- He is going to go back to ... to my land. And he is going to kill them all.> _ Oh, god, we're going to be wiped out by aliens," she adds in English.

_< "I will speak to our father,"> _ Sha're says decisively. _< "I will tell him that we must go to the Deep Desert tonight as soon as the storm is over -- all but those who must bring the tribute. You will be safe there."> _ She starts to pull her hands free from Dani's grip.

Dani clutches her tighter. _< "No, Sha're, no. That will not serve you! Ra will find you! He can--"> _ she scrabbles wildly for the right words, the words that will let Sha're _understand. <"--the great heaven-boat of Ra will ascend into the sky, and it will see the people wherever you are. He will slay you with great fires. You must come with me to be safe."> _

_< "Where is this safety of yours?"> _ Sha're asks slowly. _< "Dana're, you rave as with fever."> _

_< "We must all go through the _chappa'ai _, Sha're. If we are not here, Ra cannot slay us. You can return to the place of your ancestors, Sha're. You can all go home." > _

Sha're stares at her in silence for so long that Dani wonders if she's spoken in English again. _< "You told me you lacked the signs to cause the God's Door to open,"> _ she says at last.

_< "I do. But only one of seven. At the _chappa'ai _in the Place of Ra, there is an engine which holds all the signs. All I must do is try each sign it holds until I discover the one that will allow me to unlock the_ chappa'ai _." > _

Sha're sighs, and sits down beside Dani on the bed, putting an arm around her shoulders. _< "'All,'"> _ she says in tones of despairing amusement. _< "And where are Great Lord Ra and all his servants to be while you profane his most secret mysteries? They will not permit it."> _

_< "They will leave, and--"> _

_< "And then Great Lord Ra -- as you say -- will go to the place from which you have come and rain fire down upon it. Yet you say that is a place of greater safety than this? Iunu is my home, Dana're. We will hide ourselves so well that even the Jaffa cannot find us. Great Lord Ra will accept our tribute and our prayers, and be satisfied."> _

_< "No, Sha're, no."> _ Dani shakes her head. If Ra will execute them just for seeing writing, what is he going to do to them for giving sanctuary to people from Earth? He probably doesn't speak English, and none of the soldiers speaks Khefian -- no, Sha're has named this place 'Iunu' -- but only an idiot wouldn't know they don't belong here.

Sha're sighs. _< "Very well. I cannot unweave this tangle. I will speak to Kasuf-my-father, if you promise to rest until I come back. It will be under his hand."> _

_< "Yes. It shall be so. You will speak to him at once?"> _

_< "Yes, yes, yes,"> _ Sha're says. She kisses Dani on the cheek. _< "Sister, I know you grieve. Do not let it poison your heart."> _ She gets to her feet and goes over to a cabinet in the corner, and opens it.

_< "What are you doing?"> _ Dani asks, yawning again. It doesn't seem fair that she should be yawning and jittering at the same time, but she's so tired she can barely see straight and she knows she doesn't dare sleep.

_< "Bringing you a cup of tea. You did not eat the noonday meal,"> _ Sha're answers. _< "This will soothe your stomach and give you more appetite."> _

_< "You do not need to trouble yourself with me,"> _ Dani grumbles fretfully through a yawn, as Sha're returns with the cup. It's glass, the first she's seen here. The tea is cool and sweet, and tastes faintly of cherries and almonds. She's thirstier than she thought, and drains the cup quickly.

_< "How should it be that I do not have a care for the welfare of my sister?"> _ Sha're answers simply. She places a hand on Dani's stomach. _< "And when the day of the Choosing comes, the eye of the Jaffa will not fall upon Oneer's child, Dana're. I swear this to you."> _

_< "You will not--"> _ Suddenly she's fumbling for the right words in the right language. _You won't have to worry about that, Sha're, we'll all be gone._ "So tired," she says in English.

Sha're helps her climb up onto the bed, and by then the loose warmth that Dani associates with Scotch and a beer chaser -- lines of bottles lined up along the bar in a New York she may never see again -- is making her muscles soft and slack, loosening the cold painful knot in her chest. Wrong and bad and not now and Sha're, why... ?

"I don't--" she says, her words slurred. She reaches for her Iunian, and can't find it.

Gone.

#

When she wakes up -- rested and comforted and deliciously languid -- it takes Dani several minutes to remember the day's disasters, why she shouldn't be here, why she shouldn't have slept at all. Sha're drugged her with something (best of intentions, different culture, and dammit, she _should have been watching for that_ ) and she isn't even sure how long she's slept (her watch says it's four in the afternoon on Sunday, which is a damned lie), but there's nobody here. She struggles out of bed, peers around the room until she finds her glasses, checks to be sure that she's still wearing Catherine's pendant (yes), finds her clothes, and actually manages to dress herself in under twenty minutes. The rucksack full of canteens that she stashed in a corner of the kitchen has been brought here while she slept, along with a couple of baskets of local manufacture -- she opens one, and sees that it's filled with odds and ends belonging to the soldiers, mostly items of clothing. She stops herself from digging through it. Time enough for that later. Or never.

She pads down the hall to the latrine . She can hear voices coming from elsewhere here in the Women's World; cradle-songs and the rhythmic speech of someone telling a story, the crying of an infant. The Women's World is a warren of tiny rooms and narrow twisting passageways; she's not really sure where Sha're's room is located within it, how big this place is, how many sleep here, what other exits it has. Nobody designs a space this way unless they're planning to resist when they're attacked, even if only by running like hell. Did the first exiles here fight back? She can't imagine them resisting Ra. Do they -- or did they -- have other enemies she doesn't know about?

When she comes out of the latrine after rinsing her hands in a bowl of something that smells like lemon tea (if the Ancient Egyptians didn't quite understand _asepsis_ , at least they were big on ablution), Akiqa is waiting for her.

_< "Dana're. Sha're sent me to see if you still slept. Come. It is time for the evening meal."> _ Akiqa regards her assessingly while Dani tries to make her mind _work_. Akiqa is one of Kasuf's women, not one of Sha're's -- Dani's never seen her here in the Women's World before. Does this mean that Kasuf is mad at her? Is it a sign of her new status? Has Sha're spoken to Kasuf yet, or are the Nagadans just too fucking busy trying to _stay alive_ right now?

_< "Yes. I come,"> _ she says.

When they step into the open courtyard inside the outer door of the Women's World, Dani can see that the evening sandstorm is at its height. The sky is black and the wind is raging, but only a few grains of sand patter down on them (enough so that there will be small drifts of sand in the streets in the morning), because the walls have been repaired. They're soon inside again, anyway. Dani shakes sand from her robes as Akiqa leads her up to the dais inside the Great Hall, where she will dine with the rest of the royal family of Nagada beneath the all-seeing Eye of Ra. She does her best not to glare at it.

Just like they did last night (and Jack was here then, and Dani tries to keep from imagining how he died, but she's spent too much time studying history), she and Sha're provide a token service before the meal begins. Sha're smiles at her and Dani forces herself to smile back. Sha're was worried about her. Sha're drugged her unconscious with the best of intentions. And Dani isn't stupid enough to get into a fight in public -- there's no privacy in tribal cultures, she knows, but there will be things that Kasuf has to notice and things he doesn't. At least she won't fall asleep in the middle of the meal this time, and after it's done, she'll corner Sha're and find out what she's said. If anything.

Tonight's meal is only vegetable soup and cheese and bread, but it's food and she's hungry. Sha're doesn't expect much out of her in the way of conversation, but she and Skaara are talking about the tribute caravan, which will leave before dawn tomorrow, so that it gets to the pyramid just at sunrise. Kasuf will go, and apparently Skaara has been asking for years to come with him, and Kasuf keeps saying "next year," and it isn't "next year" yet. Certainly nobody here looks like they're getting ready to bolt for _anywhere_ , and Dani darts a suspicious glance at Sha're. _< "Tomorrow we go,"> _ Sha're says, leaning close to whisper in her ear. _< "I gave your words to Kasuf my father. Tomorrow."> _

It isn't enough and it won't work. But at least Sha're tried.

This is the first time she's ever managed to stay awake all the way through dinner. It's a leisurely meal, and as it draws to a close, people begin to approach the dais where Kasuf is sitting. Dani eavesdrops on several conversations before she understands what she's seeing.

Kasuf is holding court. Not kings-and-crowns court, but the kind involving the dispensing of justice. Tonight a lot of it involves ownership rights (live goats, dead goats, widows, orphaned children, houses, furniture). Dani gets a number of speculative glances. The Nagadans wouldn't have held her responsible (or _as_ responsible) for today's disaster as they do (if they do) Jack and the others, but if they hadn't decided to kill her, if she hadn't been able to fling herself on Kasuf's mercy, somebody would probably be trying to claim her right now in part-payment for damages . Because here, on Iunu, she's property, and that yoke can lie lightly or heavily, but (she realizes despairingly) the brutal fact of the matter remains that _Kasuf's alien daughter will never be able to convince these people to come through the Stargate in the time she has._

She'll have to go alone. Tonight. She can hide in the Cartouche Room until Ra leaves (and pray he has no reason to go there), and when she gets to Earth, she'll tell General West about Ra, and that the Nagadan civilization contains information he'll need to fight Ra. He'll send another mission, and she'll be able to come with them since she's the only one who knows the language, and then they can evacuate the Nagadans before Ra comes back for them. If and if and if. But she's running out of time and choices, and she can reach the pyramid from Nagada, but not from someplace hundreds of miles away.

Maybe she can get Sha're to come with her. Maybe. On Earth she'll be safe. Safer. Maybe.

As the last few petitioners come forward to speak with Kasuf, a man runs through the doorway. His body is caked with sand, glistening with sweat, and his eyes are wild; he falls to hands and knees at the foot of Kasuf's throne, pointing back the way he's come, gasping for air. Sha're's urging Dani to her feet, but it's too late.

Six Jaffa march into the room. It's the first time Dani's seen them, but it's obvious what they are. They're monstrous -- almost seven feet tall, wearing elaborate silver armor: arm-pieces and bracers and complex pectorals and wide jeweled belts. They move with such ponderous precision that she wonders, for a moment, if they're robots instead of men. All of them are carrying long staffs, and their heads are completely covered with enormous elaborate masks. Hawks. Jackals. The eyes glow red. 

At the sight of them, everyone in the room throws themselves onto their faces. Sha're tugs frantically at Dani's hand, but Dani's on her feet now and she stands transfixed, unmoving. A man walks ahead of the Jaffa, and he looks as if he stepped out of the most luridly inaccurate version of Egypt ever foisted by Hollywood on a long-suffering public. Bare chest, pectoral, belt, bracers, white linen kilt -- but no Egyptian ever wore those gilded hoplite boots (they're a thousand years out of date, just to begin with), and to add undignified insult to anachronistic injury, he's wearing an open-front gold lamé robe over everything. She stares at him in disbelief ( _can't be Ra -- no beard, no symbols of kingship -- who?_ ) and it takes her a moment to look past the elaborate mask of paint and realize what -- _who_ \-- she's seeing.

"Gary!"

She scrambles off the dais. "Gary! Are you all right? Did Ra let you go? Where's--"

She doesn't get any farther than that. Two of the Jaffa step forward, crossing their staffs between her and Gary. The others turn, pointing theirs at the Nagadans. The tips open. Blue lightning crackles. Gary smiles at her, cold and cruel, and his eyes flash. _Really_ flash, as if his head were hollow and somebody just stuck a flashlight inside. Dani starts to back away -- irrationally certain that Gary is dead and she's looking at a walking corpse -- when he steps forward -- the Jaffa quickly lift their staffs out of the way -- and grabs her wrist. He's squeezing hard enough to bruise.

_< "On your knees before your god."> _ It isn't Gary's voice; it's hollow and buzzing and deep. She's still trying to pull away when he backhands her. She's been hit before, and it's always a shock, but this is hard enough to cause the split-second disconnect that's like being shocked by electric current, and she falls. He's still holding her wrist. She feels her mouth filling with blood. He's knocked her glasses off. 

_< "The last of the rebels. Did you truly believe you could mock your gods with your defiance, old man? Taste now the mercy of the Great Lord Ra."> _

_< "No,"> _ Dani says, because if she doesn't understand anything else about what's going on here, she understands that Dead Gary is about to kill everyone here in the name of Ra. _< "Bringing me with the tribute."> _ She takes a deep breath, makes her voice stronger, even though her head is still ringing and she can see her own blood staining the knees of her robe. _< "Tomorrow. With the tribute. To Ra. I swear."> _

Speaking gets her yanked to her feet, but only so Gary can hit her again. This time he lets go of her when the blow connects and she goes staggering backward, tripping and falling over two of the prostrated Nagadans. They don't even twitch. She stays where she falls. Her face hurts. Her neck hurts. Her head is pounding in time with her heartbeat.

_< "Old man! Do you let a woman speak for you?"> _

_< "It is as the woman says."> _ And she's heard Kasuf confused and wildly doubtful and fond and every inch his people's leader, and it hurts in an entirely different way than physical pain to hear him groveling this way to whatever monster has taken possession of the corpse of Gary Meyers. Defeated, terrified, lying and ashamed of lying, and it makes her so furious she can hardly _breathe._

She pushes herself to her knees and pulls the knot loose that keeps Catherine's pendant around her neck. She has to hold onto the edge of the dais in order to get to her feet, and the edges of her vision dissolves in white flashes when she does, but she manages.

_< "This is yours,"> _ she says, holding the pendant out at arm's length. _I wouldn't keep wearing it if you paid me,_ her voice says, and she thinks of Giza, the buried Stargate, and the fact her ancestors killed ... whatever's speaking through him now. She's holding the amulet by the string of gold and lapis beads, the heavy gold pendant itself revolves slowly at the end, like a pendulum.

Dead Gary gestures, and one of the Jaffa steps toward her. She thinks it's going to take the pendant from her, but it doesn't. It just stands in front of her, and they stare at each other for a long moment -- she has a sense she's missing a cue -- until it reaches out and takes her by the arm and drags her back over to Dead Gary again. The Jaffa are frightening, but Dead Gary is actually terrifying. She's never been afraid of spiders or snakes or dead bodies or dark rooms or most of the usual traditional things that people are phobic about, but Dead Gary -- even in his ridiculous costume -- fills Dani with a kind of horror that she can't even articulate, and familiarity should make it less so, but the longer she's in his presence, the more horrible Dead Gary seems to be. When she and the Jaffa reach him, he holds out his hand, and she places the pendant in it, doing her best not to come anywhere near his skin. He closes his fingers around it and turns away.

_< "Bring all that the rebels possess with the tribute. Or before tomorrow's sunset, your city and your people will be ash on the wind,"> _ he tells Kasuf.

Dani wants to do anything but follow Dead Gary out of the Great Hall, but the Jaffa's still holding onto her and she has no choice. The street is dark, and the sky is clear. The village is utterly silent. When they're on the street, Gary raises his hand without looking back. It's a gesture of arrogant lordliness that the Gary Meyers Dani knew couldn't have pulled off on his best day, much less when he was dressed like this. The monster wearing his skin makes it seem utterly natural, and Dani thinks (once more) of demonic possession.

_< "Remind them,"> _ Dead Gary says. He walks off, and two of the Jaffa -- one of them the one holding her -- follow. The other four begin firing through the doorway of the Great Hall.

She jerks around at the sound of the first explosions -- the same zapping sounds she heard when Nagada was attacked. The staffs they carry are weapons. Flashes of blue-white light come from the end. They're shooting through the doorway.

"Oh god," Dani whispers. Kasuf, Sha're, Skaara ... everyone she knows on Khefiu is in that room.

#

This really hasn't been anybody's finest hour, except maybe the bad guys', and O'Neill's has plenty of time to go over every possible misstep and bad call of the last two months once he wakes up. Brown's missing when he takes a look around. The Jaffa's idea of where to stash prisoners is a big dark tank full of tepid brackish water. They were all dumped in on the sink-or-swim plan, and the guys who were conscious held the others' heads above water until they came around. There's about two feet of airspace at the top, and the water comes to about mid-chest on everyone -- except at the center, because the floor of the tank slopes downward. The walls are metal, and there are lights on the bottom, enough to give the place a kind of tiki-bar look but not enough to give much light. It's hard to find a place to stand comfortably, and they can't sit either, and the water's cool enough to leech enough heat off them that they'll all be looking at hypothermia eventually.

Freeman's in pretty good shape, Mankiewicz is bitching about the accommodations, Porro keeps slipping back under the water and coming up sputtering (O'Neill's guessing at least a mild concussion, not that there's much he can do about it), and Kawalsky's still out. O'Neill takes over the job of keeping Kawalsky from drowning from Ferretti while he takes stock of their surroundings and gets Freeman's sitrep.

There's a hatch in the roof; Freeman says a couple of the armored guys -- more of Dani's Jaffa, from the description -- took Brown out through it earlier. He gives O'Neill all the rest of the bad news quickly; he saw the ground as they were being flown here in by one of the Jaffa fighter/interceptors. He says the Base Camp was completely uncovered and there's another -- even larger -- pyramid on top of the other pyramid now. It's enough to explain why Ra sent a hunting party to Nagada. When Freeman's done, O'Neill turns Kawalsky over to him, tells Ferretti to keep an eye on Porro, and goes exploring, but he can't get the leverage to force the hatch, and when he swims down, there's no way he can pry loose the lights to drain the tank, either. That's about the time that Meyers starts demanding that he _do something_ , and the only thing O'Neill can think of that would be even remotely useful at the moment is drowning Meyers, so he tells him he's working on it.

He's not sure how it could have played out differently. Even if they'd known Ra was coming early, there wouldn't have been much they could have done about getting rid of the Base Camp. For now, they're all still alive and nobody's seen Dani -- either during the firefight or here -- which is the only glimmer of hope he has (not for them, but for the mission). Maybe she'll think of going back through the Stargate by herself -- assuming she _can_ go back through the Stargate -- and maybe she'll remember everything he said and be able to convince General West that they've got trouble. It's a hell of a long shot. Should have sent her through when he had the chance. Too late now.

About half an hour after the first time he looked at his watch, the hatch opens again and a couple of Jaffa drop Brown back through it. O'Neill tries to climb out then, but the Jaffa aren't having any of it. One of them shoves him back into the tank with his stick, and the other one points his stick at Freeman. Freeman doesn't move, and the Jaffa does something, and the end of the stick starts to glow and crackle. They're weapons, and all of them saw them used at Nagada.

When he moves forward again, the Jaffa swivels the stick-weapon to point it right at him. He stops. The message is clear. Freeman swims over to the hatchway. "Name, rank, and my grand'ma's chili recipe, Colonel," he says, as they haul him out.

"Pretty sure that's a weapon of mass destruction, Freeman," he answers. The hatch closes again.

Brown isn't unconscious, but he isn't quite with them, either. He's confused and disoriented -- which isn't a good sign, since Ferretti says that Brown and Freeman were in the best shape when they got here. Brown says he was taken to a room full of children and met King Tut. He's also complaining about a headache, and that the light here in the tank hurts his eyes.

They haven't been searched, but that doesn't mean that any of them is carrying anything of any particular use -- Mankiewicz doesn't even have his pants. O'Neill does the best assessment of Brown he can by the glow of his watch-face, and all he finds is that Brown's pupils are normal and he has a round burn on his forehead. It's hard to see; Brown is black. But it's tender to the touch, and Brown doesn't remember getting it. O'Neill tells him not to worry about it. That's what you say, even when you've been captured by a bunch of space aliens. At least none of them can give up any information. A language barrier has its uses.

He fingers the key strung on the chain with his dog-tags. There was enough time in Nagada to arm the SADM when the Jaffa came calling. It would have vaporized everything in (so he'd been told) a three-mile radius and the rain would glow in the dark for years. And all he could have taken out with certainty was all their friendlies and a few footsoldiers. He'd still been hoping to avoid collateral damage; it was why he'd told the boys to stick to M60s. They're shit for accuracy, but they don't jam and they don't break, and the hostiles were half-naked, and his guys _should_ have been able to take them down.

And it didn't happen. He doesn't know why. Hell, they even gave _Meyers_ a rifle. It should've been a walkover. What he knows is that he and six of the US Air Force's baddest and blackest went up against a bunch of guys in _armor_ and the last thing he remembers is one of them yanking his rifle out of his hand and beating him unconscious with it.

Freeman's gone for forty minutes by his watch, but during that time Kawalsky rejoins the party, bitching about his head and the fact he didn't get to kill anybody today. O'Neill tells him to be patient; the day isn't over yet.

When they open the hatch again, O'Neill's ready for them. Kawalsky and Ferretti boost him out through it before they can drop Freeman in. "Guess I'm next?" he says. It's two of the dog-headed guys. He wonders what the difference between them and the bird-headed ones is. Anything? They stare at him, and O'Neill would be willing to swear that they're just _confused._ He claps his hands together, feigning enthusiasm. "No time like the present."

One of them picks up Freeman -- out of it, just like Brown was. The light's just fine out here, and O'Neill can see a round pink burn about three inches across in the center of Freeman's forehead. The Jaffa drops him through the open hatch. Freeman's no lightweight, but the Jaffa handles him as if he's a rag doll.

"Bring us back a souvenir, Colonel!" Kawalsky calls. He doesn't have time to answer as they seal the hatch again.

Off they go, one in front of him, one behind, and he keeps his eyes open while he considers the possibility of getting his hands on one of those bang-sticks. There's a grip in the middle; he's seen the Jaffa using them enough that he's pretty sure he's got the idea. Push-twist-fire. And the Jaffa are strong and fast, but this isn't the first time he's seen them just freeze up when he or one of the boys did something they apparently didn't expect. He wonders just when the last time was that somebody stood up to one of them.

They're leading him through something that looks more like a fancy hotel than any alien prison has a right to. A lot of pink marble. A lot of gauze draperies (and the windows look like they're just open holes in the walls; Freeman said they're on top of the pyramid; too far to jump, but maybe he can throw somebody _else_ out the window). A few flaming braziers. The place doesn't look a damned thing like the Starship _Enterprise_. At least he knows they haven't been here long; the attack on Nagada came just before dawn and the sun's barely up now.

They get to a place done up in early Dictator's Throne Room, and he's a little surprised to find out that Brown was right -- or at least accurate. The guy in the Comfy Chair (kid, from the look of all of him O'Neill can see; probably somewhere in his early 'teens) is wearing a big gold King Tut mask, and the room is full of little kids. The oldest is maybe eight. None of them wearing more than beads and a diaper and a lot of Max Factor.

When he and his minders all line up in a row in front of the throne, he hears a zipping sound, and the Jaffa helmets peel back and fold down. Nothing underneath all that metal but a couple of ordinary guys. And O'Neill's betting that King Tut is Ra, and he's pretty sure that the kids will scatter at the first big noise, so when Tut waves at the two Jaffa and they go down to one knee and bow their heads, he grabs one of the bang-sticks and shoots its owner. And it works a lot better than the M60, because he can almost see daylight.

He knows he's only got a second to line up his shot on Ra before the other Jaffa and probably all his little Jaffa buddies are all over him. But the kids haven't scattered. They've swarmed around the throne, into Ra's lap, and O'Neill freezes even while he's telling himself to take the shot.

And he doesn't take the shot. But someone else does.

#

The next thing O'Neill's aware of is that he's lying in a box. He's got the shaky edge-of-nausea feeling he remembers from the good old days of being shot up with half-a-dozen vaccines at once on the theory that if the Air Force doctors didn't manage to kill you, the enemy probably wouldn't either. He opens his eyes, and just as he registers that there's a barrier a few inches away from his nose and the sides of the box are lit up like a tanning bed, the lid splits open and slides back and he's looking up at his old buddies Jekyll and Hyde. Or maybe at their replacements, because he's pretty sure he remembers killing one of them.

Before the other one killed him.

Jekyll reaches in and grabs him and yanks him out. When his boots hit the floor, he realizes they're dry. All his clothes are. They're also drafty, and he reaches around behind himself, and there's a neat hole in the back of his shirt, beside the spine, just about at the third rib. The skin underneath it is smooth.

He lets Jekyll and Hyde walk him back to the fishtank. It's late afternoon now, or six or seven hours since the last time he took this walk. The nausea fades quickly, but everything's still too bright and too sharp, and the light hurts his eyes. When they open the hatch, he sees Kawalsky and the others looking up at him, so he doesn't wait to be dropped in. He puts himself down into the fishtank without a fight.

"Colonel! Man, oh man, are we glad to see you," Kawalsky says.

"Back at you," O'Neill says. He's counting heads. Kawalsky, Ferretti, Freeman, Brown, Mankiewicz, Porro... "Where's Meyers?"

"Took him outta here after they talked to Porro, Colonel," Mankiewicz says. "They didn't take none of us after that."

"Didn't tell 'em nothing, Colonel," Porro says staunchly.

"Didn't think so," O'Neill says.

"That was about six hours ago, Colonel," Ferretti says. "We figured maybe..."

"I haven't seen him," O'Neill says. He scrubs a hand through his hair, trying to make sense of what _happened_ , because it doesn't. Not any of it. "Guess they didn't like me much. Got into a fight, lost, they put me in a box, they took me out, and here we are."

And he was dead, Goddammit, fucking dead, because he knows what those Jaffa bang-sticks can do, and he knows he was shot, and he ought to be dead now, and he doesn't like the idea that he _was_ dead and isn't dead now, because that's a whole world of wrong. He's holding onto the hope now that Dani was right, that the Stargate goes to a lot of places, that maybe Ra will think they came to Abydos from one of the other ones, because it isn't as if Ra needs to find out where Earth is from any of them. Ra used to _live_ there. He knows the way. And everything O'Neill's seen from the moment those Jaffa waltzed into Nagada tells him that if Ra shows up on Earth, Earth doesn't have a chance.

_One shot, O'Neill. You had one chance and you screwed the pooch._

He wants to think he could have taken the shot if he'd just had another second or two, but he isn't sure. He clears his throat. "I have orders for you."

"Sir," Kawalsky says.

"I can't tell you how this is going to play out. You were at Dr. Jackson's briefing. You know as much about Ra as I do. We know he'll be collecting the _naquaadah_ from the Abydans tomorrow. It might give all of us a chance to escape, and that would be nice. But getting back to Earth with this intel is more important than anything else, so anyone who can get out of here: go. Don't stop for anything or anybody. Get back to Nagada. Find Dr. Jackson. Bring her back to the Stargate. She has six of the symbols we need to reach Earth. She needs a couple of hours with the Dial Home Device to figure out the seventh one. When she's got it, you take her through and you report to General West, or anybody you can find. And do it fast."

"You think Dr. Jackson's still at Nagada, sir?" Porro asks.

"I don't see her here, Sergeant, and I can't think of anywhere else she can be," O'Neill answers, making it a joke. Because he can think of a lot of places. Easily. She can be dead -- either in the firefight, or executed by the Nagadans in revenge for the disaster -- or even a prisoner here somewhere. They weren't exactly dragged out of the village under optimal observing conditions. And facts are facts: none of them is making it off Abydos without all seven Stargate Glyphs and a clear shot at the Stargate. Unless, of course, there's a nice alien prison planet in their futures. "Now, are we clear?"

"Yes, sir," Kawalsky says. "Bust out of here, and ... permission to run like hell and then hide, Colonel?"

"Permission granted. Assuming you can catch up with me, of course." Everyone laughs, just as he means them to. It's a crap plan, but it's something, and that helps.

After that, there's nothing to do but wait. They're all used to waiting. For an hour or so, O'Neill goes over everything they know for sure about Ra (tactics, methods, history, goals), everything they know about the Jaffa (equipment, weak spots, estimation of numbers), and everything they know about the layout of the pyramid (not a lot). It would be nice if they can bust out of here, but the try might come to nothing. The hatch might be locked. Or there might be guards. And out of here doesn't mean _out_. From his glimpse of the position of the sun earlier, O'Neill knows they've got about four hours to sunset, then a brisk two-hour sandstorm, then at least another six hours until the middle of the night. He doesn't know if this place quiets down after midnight, but he does know there's no point in trying to break out while they're sure that everybody's up and around. 

Back in his Virtuous Young Officer days, O'Neill had to read a lot of military theory, and he'd developed some theories of his own, one of them being that the Prussians just got too much fun out of war, but he's always had a soft spot in his heart for von Moltke, who'd been both a pragmatist and a cynic. Von Moltke said that _no battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy_ , and he was right about that, since about eight hours into their wait-time, the hatch is opened again, and this time it's everybody out. 

They have eight Jaffa -- one for each of them and one to grow on -- and O'Neill would like to think it's because of what he tried with Ra, but he doesn't think it is. None of the Jaffa say anything -- he wonders briefly if they can talk at all -- and they all stand there looking at each other for a few seconds. Then a movement in the doorway catches O'Neill's attention, and he looks, and it takes him a few seconds to realize that he's looking at Gary Meyers, decked out like the high priest in a road-show _Aida_.

"What's wrong with this picture... ?" Kawalsky says slowly.

"Quiet," O'Neill says sharply, because he can't figure out how Meyers could have sold them out in the first place even if he'd wanted to, and in the second place, the moment Meyers gets within thirty feet of them, all the Jaffa snap to attention as if somebody's flipped a switch.

He shot a man once, a long time ago and far away, for nothing more than walking toward his position -- in broad daylight, and clearly wearing a US uniform. But the guy'd been moving wrong -- he couldn't explain it afterward more clearly than that -- and when he'd gone out after dark to confirm the kill, he'd found it wasn't one of their guys after all. So the Major had put Captain O'Neill up for a commendation instead of bringing him up on charges. And O'Neill knows that this may look like Meyers, but it isn't Meyers.

The guy who isn't Meyers stops carefully out of reach. "So these are the proud _Tau'ri_ who would challenge my father," he says. His voice is deep and buzzing -- almost like one of those computer-generated voices, but there's too much emotion in it. Even so, it's not a human voice at all. But the guy's speaking English, and O'Neill doesn't know what to think about that. Time to worry about details later.

"And you are?" O'Neill asks.

The guy wearing Meyers's skin (and O'Neill wonders just where Meyers is right now) glares at him snootily, and his eyes light up like Christmas lights: flash, flash. He smiles, and it's cold, and triumphant, and O'Neill thinks that no matter how much has gone wrong already, something's just gone wronger, and for a moment he can't run that hunch down. And then he can. _Aida_ -guy is wearing a pendant around his neck, and O'Neill would recognize it anywhere. It's the one Langford was always wearing; the one she slipped to Dani just before Dani jumped through the Stargate.

"I am Nekheny, son of Ra, who is the supreme Lord of all the gods!"

It ought to be funny -- _Meyers_ ought to be funny -- but nobody laughs. Meyers-or-Nekheny barks out something in an language that sounds a lot like what the Abydans were talking, and goes striding off. The Jaffa reorganize themselves with all the snap of a well-drilled color guard: two in front, three on each side.

"Come on, boys, let's go for a walk," O'Neill says. He'd rather skip the part where the Jaffa poke all of them with sticks. And there's the spark of an idea at the back of his mind. He wills himself to ignore it. Too soon to jostle it.

They tramp down two corridors that are progressively less open and airy and more done in early Dracula's Tomb before O'Neill realizes that a whole section of a couple of those corridors has to be actually some kind of elevator. He hasn't felt any motion, but he's guessing they're going down and not up. The floors have all been black and smooth as glass for a while now, and he guesses the grunts don't get the pink marble treatment. There are a bunch of other Jaffa in the corridors, and at the sight of Meyers they snap to attention, bang their sticks on the deck, and freeze. O'Neill counts at least thirty of them just while they're out for their walk. Freeman said Ra's spaceship is bigger than the pyramid, and O'Neill knows how big the pyramid is. He doesn't have any idea of how much space the engines in an alien spaceship might take up, but if you say (for the sake of argument) this thing is somewhere between a Spruance-class and Nimitz-class ship, they're facing a potential of anywhere between four hundred and five thousand hostiles. Those odds would suck if they wanted to do anything other than escape. They aren't that good for an escape either, but if this thing has elevators, it has to have a ground floor somewhere, and they know that the bang-sticks will kill Jaffa.

They're boxed in -- two Jaffa on each side -- and O'Neill's just about ready to cue Kawalsky to start some trouble when he sees that Meyers has stopped in the corridor ahead. He's wearing some kind of glove on one hand; O'Neill put all the handwaving he was doing as they walked down to nervous twitches, but now he thinks the glove may be some kind of remote control, because when he waves this time, O'Neill sees part of the wall go dark and slide back -- it opens like scissor-blades; the same way the lid on the light-box opened -- and Meyers starts jabbering at somebody out of sight. There's a space on the other side, and ten gets you twenty it's another prison cell and he's pretty tired of those. So he's giving Kawalsky the high-sign, when someone comes walking slowly out of the cell toward Meyers. It's Dani. He grabs her when she gets close enough and shoves her to her knees. The way he holds up that glove over her head tells O'Neill it's definitely some kind of weapon.

"Aw ... crap," Kawalsky says under his breath.

And all of a sudden that idea O'Neill had back at the tank is right there full-blown, and it's crazy, and it's a long-shot, and it's a one in a million chance, but Meyers called himself Ra's son, and Dani said that Egyptian inscriptions are supposed to talk about all Ra's friends and relations and the ones on Abydos don't, and warning Earth isn't as useful as stopping Ra right here if he has to choose one or the other. So he takes a deep breath and calls out to her: "Hey, Dani, you and Nekheny been catching up on his family?"

She starts to come up off her knees at the sound of his voice. She doesn't have her glasses, so he's not sure what she can see, and she looks pretty bruised. That veil-scarf thing she was wearing in Nagada is gone, but other than that she's still dressed. Meyers tries to grab a handful of her hair, but it's too short for that, and he settles for grabbing the back of her robes. She looks completely confused, but that's better than terrified. "Son of Ra," O'Neill adds.

" _Nekheny_?" she demands in disbelief. She shakes her head. "No. That's never been-- It's Haru, and--"

Meyers barks at her, saying something in Ancient Egyptian (and this is a great time for Meyers to discover his long-lost language skills, although O'Neill really doesn't think that's Meyers any more), and Dani just stares up at him in disbelief. Any minute now she's going to open her mouth to tell him his scholarship _bites_ and he has to pick a new Archaeologist-Possessed-by-Aliens Name. O'Neill can tell. 

They're in front of the cells now, a charming line of cubicles, and the other ones seem to be empty, which is a damned good thing, since his membership in the Buck Rogers Friendship League seems to have lapsed and he'd rather not have to worry about rescuing any more people right now. The Jaffa do another wheel-and-turn, and the two in front march over to stand behind Meyers, while the rest of them form a line behind him and his men. 

"Maybe he's a younger brother," O'Neill says. "That's gotta be kinda tough. Ra doesn't strike me as the caring, sharing type."

"Be silent!" Meyers snaps -- in English this time.

"No," Dani says thoughtfully. "He isn't. Ra is lord of all things and ruler of all things."

Meyers gargles out something else -- not in English -- but Dani translates it. " _He will grant me rich gifts for rooting out such a nest of scorpions._ The way he did to Sekmet?" she asks artlessly. "Of course, you might say that--"

O'Neill never gets to hear the end of that sentence, since Meyers hauls Dani to her feet and shakes her like a rag doll. "She was a fool!" Meyers shouts. Back in English, because apparently he wants everybody but the Jaffa to be able to follow the conversation. He drops Dani and she goes sprawling. " _I_ am not! Tomorrow you die for your blasphemy," he says, glaring at O'Neill, "but perhaps I will keep your woman alive to amuse me."

The Jaffa start herding all of them into the cell. Dani's still on hands and knees, although it didn't look like she went down that hard. Kawalsky looks at him questioningly and O'Neill shakes his head just a little (this plan has a better chance of working than trying to fight their way out) and the seven of them mill and shuffle a bit on their way in, just to see how much horsing around it takes to make the Jaffa nervous. The answer seems to be that the Jaffa don't give a damn what they do until somebody higher up the chain of command orders them to. Good to know.

O'Neill takes a sideways to reach down and grab Dani by the wrist. He hears her suck air as he drags her to her feet, but he doesn't have time to be gentle. "You do that," he tells Meyers-or-Nekheny. He's pleased that he manages to nail that tone of 'nothing to do with me' that always used to drive his COs batshit. "Too bad she doesn't know a damned thing about suitcase nukes. God's always on the side of the heaviest artillery."

He and Dani are the last ones in. The cell doors slide shut. Meyers makes another grand gesture, and the space between the lattice fills with a pale purple glow, sort of _eau de_ bug zapper. "Don't touch them," Dani says, quick and quiet, and O'Neill steps back.

"Ra's going to kill you, Gary," she says, her voice low and vicious. "He won't want witnesses. He'll kill all the Nagadans, and he'll kill you, too, and I hope I'm there to watch!"

For a second O'Neill thinks she's taken Poke-the-Freak too far, and Meyers-Nekheny is going to open up that door again and beat the life out of her. The guy's eyes flash (not possible; O'Neill's seen a lot of impossible things in the last two months), and he's shaking with rage. They can all feel it (except Dani, unless she's suddenly developed a _death wish_ ) and he senses his boys going still and tense -- all but Kawalsky, who's shifting his weight to lunge forward and yank Dani out of the way the moment those doors start to move. But after a very long ten seconds Nekheny barks out another sentence or two and turns away. When he tromps off, six of the Jaffa follow him. The other two take up posts on either side of the door. O'Neill lets out a long slow breath.

"What'd he say, Doc?" Kawalsky asks brightly.

"That he'd have my intestines torn out with golden hooks and fed to dogs while I watched." She walks slowly away from the door to one of the walls, leans back against it, and slides down until she's sitting on the floor. "Hi, guys," she says, sounding tired, and everyone says "hi," and Mankiewicz suddenly develops an acute case of modesty (they're the most highly-trained natural disasters the US Air Force can produce, but his boys have _manners_ ), and in a few minutes there will be general conversation going on, and they don't have the energy to waste on that.

"Settle in, fellas," he says. "At least our new room's dry. Ferretti, you have first watch. Kawalsky, relieve him in two. The rest of you get some sleep."

That puts an end to the chatter. Now that he's got a breathing space, O'Neill looks around. The cell is wider than it is deep; about eight by twelve. The walls are gold and look like glass; there's a narrow bench of the same material along the back wall. No way out but the front door, and he can't even assess the possibility of getting it open with their two minders outside. 

Kawalsky stretches out on the bench and the other four take the floor, laying down close to each other to share as much body heat as they can. Ferretti stands facing the door.

O'Neill goes and kneels down beside Dani. "How you doing?" he asks quietly. Her face is puffy, and she's got a split lip. The front of her robes are spattered with blood, but not too much. He lifts up the hem of his t-shirt -- it's still damp -- and dabs at her face.

"Don't," she says sulkily, swatting his hand away. "It hurts."

If she can bitch at him, she's probably not too badly hurt, and her pupils are the same size. He sits back on his heels. "Want to tell me what happened?" he asks.

"Gary came back to Nagada after dinner. I thought... I don't know what I thought. Sha're said you were dead." She's started in the middle again, but he can piece together the rest of it: the Jaffa hit Nagada, the Jaffa left, she came out of hiding, the Jaffa showed up again.

"Dani," he says warningly, because she looks like she's about to veer off into a lot of things that he can't have her saying here. Not just about him and her (that's horse and barn; his entire team was sitting on its ass at Project Giza for the past year waiting for their mission to be greenlighted), but about how hopeless their situation is. Talking about things like that sends a mission south faster than anything he knows, true or not. He'd like to indulge her, or even just tell her that everything's going to be fine, and he doesn't have that kind of luxury right now.

She takes a deep breath, and he can practically _feel_ her reining herself in and trying to focus. "He was looking for me." She nods, a little, agreeing with herself. "That's why he came. 'The last of the rebels.' That's how they think of us, Jack." She laughs, but there's no voice behind it. "We're the last of the Giza rebels. He accused Kasuf of hiding me. I told him Kasuf was going to bring me to Ra with the tribute."

"Is that true?" O'Neill asks.

Dani shakes her head and winces. "No." She closes her eyes, and doesn't open them when she starts talking again. "Kasuf said it was, though. What else could... Gary -- Nekheny..." There's another long pause. "He told Kasuf to bring all your things with the tribute. When we left, he had the Jaffa fire back into the Great Hall. I don't know if anyone's still alive. Kasuf. Sha're. Skaara. Three hundred people. Maybe more."

"Hard for them to bring the tribute if they aren't," he answers, refusing to let himself think about all the people who are already dead just for helping him and his team stay alive. Last night the Jaffa fired into the houses as they came up the street. When people tried to escape, they shot them down.

"Oh, god, do you think Ra gives a flying fuck about whether he's asking them to do the impossible?" she snaps in irritation. 

O'Neill knows the answer to that, but she's starting to veer again. He moves over to sit next to her, where he can keep an eye on the cell and the door both. Not too close. He can't cuddle her right now, and his clothes are still soaking wet anyway. The cell isn't as cold as the tank was, but all Dani's got on is the two or three layers of lightweight stuff the Nagadan girls wear during the day; wet that down and she'll freeze. 

"Meyers has your pendant," he says.

He sees her mouth quirk. Not enough energy for a smirk, but she's pleased about something; she's got a vindictive streak a mile wide when she lets it off its leash. He thinks she never liked Meyers before and really hates him now, but it doesn't hurt to fan the flames a little. Anger will keep you alive when nothing else will. 

"I practically threw it in his face in the Great Hall. I wouldn't wear it ever again if you paid me. Do you know, Catherine thought it would bring me luck? It did. Just--"

_Just the wrong kind._ "We don't know that yet," he says, cutting her off before she can say the words aloud.

"I wish to hell you _did_ have a suitcase nuke. I'd light the fuse myself," she adds.

He shakes his head in disbelief. If the Ancient Egyptians'd had a nuclear weapons program, Dani'd be a nuclear physicist. As it is, O'Neill's pretty sure that microwave ovens baffle her. "You don't light a fuse. You turn a key. That's the first part of the arming sequence. The second part is inputting a ten-digit sequence on the keypad. I used my home phone number. You remember it?"

"Of course I--" She stops. Her eyes open. She stares at him in silence.

"Once you've put in the code, you can set the timer. The timer will accept five digits. If you input an illegal string of numbers, the timing mechanism immediately defaults to a three-minute countdown and the timer starts running. Otherwise, set your time to detonation and press the big red button on the side. It's safe -- the button won't do anything until the device is fully armed and the timer is set. Even then, it only starts the countdown."

There's a long silence. Dani's still staring at him. "What if somebody didn't press the button?" she asks in a small voice.

"If you don't press it within ten seconds, the display goes blank and you get a second chance. You get three chances to set a time before the timer defaults to the three-minute countdown."

Another silence. "What if somebody put in all zeroes and pressed it?"

"Then the device would detonate right then, Dani."

"You want Gary to kill Ra."

He's known, practically from the moment he met her back in New York, that Dani's smart and she thinks fast. He can't decide yet whether her calmness now is exhaustion, shock, injury, or the fact that she _still_ isn't frightened by things that make normal people scream and hide under their beds. Whatever its cause, he'll take it as more luck than he deserves and hope it holds for long enough. However long "long enough" has to be.

"I don't think Meyers is in there any more," he says carefully. "Now. What do you know that's useful, given our current situation?"

"You don't want much, do you?" She takes a deep breath and rolls her shoulders, then winces. "Ow." She leans forward and rubs her eyes. "I can't believe you brought a bomb to Abydos," she grumbles.

"Technically, I brought a one-kiloton-yield Special Atomic Demolition Munition to Abydos."

"A bomb," she insists.

"Yeah."

Side-trip over, she gets down to business. "I've never heard the Jaffa make any sounds. I don't think they understand English. I know Gary didn't speak Iuni-- the local language, but he does now. And that's interesting, because he speaks English, too." 

O'Neill recognizes the tone of someone rummaging through their mental file-cabinets, but she seems to be going somewhere with the last statement. "Come again?"

She sits back, ticking off the points on her fingers as she makes them. "Ra was kicked out of Egypt some time previous to, oh, 4500 BCE, say. Certainly no later than the Late Protodynastic Period -- or at least seven thousand years ago, because I know you don't know 'protodynastic' from 'protoplasm'. The English language is a slightly later invention," she adds dryly. "And English... What Nekheny was speaking actually sounds like a hybrid of Early Modern and Modern English, and that dialect is less than, oh, call it four hundred years old. The Nagadans didn't know English -- where could they have learned it? Nekheny shouldn't have known it either."

"They've got spaceships," O'Neill points out, because he really doesn't want to say 'alien brainsucking machines' out loud.

"Yes," she agrees impatiently. "But -- look. Jack. Ra thinks the Nagadans are cattle -- that was what the Egyptians used to be called, you know: the cattle of Ra. He thinks we're no different than they are. He has to. Nekheny called me a 'rebel', that has to be why. So would Nekheny bother to learn English? Or use it, even if he did?"

"I don't know," he says. "Is any of this immediately useful?" Her analysis of Nekheny's psychology, maybe, because it's always nice when the bad guys underestimate you. The history lesson, not so much. Not now, anyway, and O'Neill isn't thinking about a 'later.'

"I don't know," she echoes back. "I want to know how the Nekheny-personality took over Gary. The Nagada frescoes say that Ra's 'essence' entered the body of a young boy in Egypt, thousands of years ago." She sighs. "I don't have enough information."

"Let's concentrate on what you _do_ know," he says. "Who was that guy you mentioned outside the cell, and why did Nekheny get so upset?"

It's a simple question. It gets him a five minute lecture on War Goddesses, Upper and Lower Egypt, and religious syncreticism. O'Neill gets the idea that Ra, 'father of the gods', isn't exactly much for Hallmark Moments, and a little steering gets him a lot more information that boils down to: Ra is in charge. Ra has a large family. Ra's kids are always fighting with each other. Ra doesn't particularly give a crap, except when they really piss him off, and then he steps in and does some smiting. "So all these other ... gods ... they wouldn't like Ra giving Nekheny special treatment?" O'Neill asks. He isn't so much trying to cut off the flow of information, as dam it before he drowns.

Dani looks indignant at being interrupted, because she has apparently managed to _forget_ the fact that her current options are summary execution or becoming a space alien's abused girlfriend. "No, Jack," she says, with exaggerated patience. "They would dislike it very much."

"And Nekheny knows that?"

_That_ gets him a look that suggests she thinks Nekheny might be the better deal of the two of them. "Considering his reaction when I brought up Sekhmet, Jack, yes. I'd say that Nekheny knows more about Ancient Egypt than Gary ever did."

"So he isn't going to trust Ra any farther than he can toss him, and if he doesn't want to end up like all those other guys, he's going to be looking for something to level the playing field."

"Well of course he is, but ... oh," she says, and blinks rapidly. 

"Meyers never knew what was in the locked case. He knew the other one had munitions, because I checked it before we left the pyramid the first time. Now let's see if Nekheny takes the bait." O'Neill thinks he will, after what Dani's said. Sure, they're aliens with spaceships, but when you come down to it, this is basically a spat between rival warlords. Familiar territory. "Dani," he says quietly. "I told you how to arm the warhead for a reason. If he lets you get your hands on it, and you can set it off, do it. Don't try to rescue anybody." He wants to tell her to punch in five zeroes on the timer and hit the button the moment she can, but that's the same as telling her to commit suicide, and it's the right choice, but she isn't trained for any of this.

"You know I-- You know I--" She stops and takes a deep breath, but her eyes are wide and dark and he can see her shaking. "Yeah. I can do that. I will."

"Ra has a bunch of kids here with him." He feels the need to warn her. She can't let it make a difference. The stakes are too high.

She goes completely still, but it isn't shock and it isn't second thoughts. "There were a lot of children in Nagada, too, Jack," she says, and her voice is cold and flat, and O'Neill thinks that if the SADM were here right now she'd have no trouble detonating it. But right now isn't tomorrow -- or however long it might be until she gets the chance. People tell themselves lies in order to stay alive. It's natural. It's why the military puts so much effort into training men not just to kill, but to die.

He thinks of dead children and of blood on his hands, both real and imaginary. If he'd killed Ra today, would someone have just put him into the same box they put him in and popped him out good as new? Or would Nekheny have gotten a sudden promotion? If Charlie had never died, would he be here now? Would Dani?

There's no way to know.

"You should try to rest," he tells her.

She runs her hands through her hair, wincing. "Because sitting in a jail cell waiting for psychotic aliens to visit is so _soothing?_ " she mutters viciously. "How long is it till dawn?"

"Maybe another ten hours. Maybe less. Depends on when they decide it's dawn."

She looks like she wants to say something. Catches herself and stops. "I'll sleep later," she says briefly.

He doesn't say anything. They sit in silence. Ferretti goes off watch, and Kawalsky takes his place. Freeman, Brown, Mankiewicz, and Porro are asleep, or close to it. O'Neill figures he can take the next watch after Kawalsky and then roust out Mankiewicz; Porro still isn't a hundred percent, and Freeman and Brown were both interrogated.

In the middle of Kawalsky's watch -- three hours after they were tossed in here -- the Jaffa outside the door go from parade rest to rigid attention. They've got company. O'Neill's a little relieved to see he's put his money on the right horse, because it's Nekheny who shows up. He's got two more Jaffa with him. O'Neill decides that things are looking up when he sends all four of the Jaffa away. He waves Kawalsky off the door and gets to his feet. He and the former Gary Meyers stare at each other through the bars for a while. O'Neill can think of half-a-dozen smartass remarks to make, but the way Nekheny is staring at him makes him decide against saying any of them. They're a useful tool, but only when you have some idea what the result's going to be. 

"You will explain your words, _Tau'ri_ ," Nekheny says. Still that weird voice. It reminds O'Neill of the sounds dead men make when the gasses of decomposition are forced over the vocal chords. It's an image he could do without right now.

"I was supposed to send my team back through the Stargate and blow it up," he answers. "I brought a nuclear warhead to Abydos." It's the short version. It'll do.

"Do you imagine we fear your primitive weapons?" Nekheny says. It's the opening bluff.

"Primitive, maybe." O'Neill shrugs. "Effective, too."

"Against a _god_?" Nekheny sneers.

"A god who can die. Or have you forgotten the fate of Atum and all his _Pesedjet_? Tell me, do Shu and Tefnut yet reign in the Place of the Pillars?" 

In a sane rational universe, Dani would have stayed where she was. This isn't a sane rational universe. She's come up beside him, and whatever she's just said must be a persuasive argument, because she actually manages to draw Nekheny's attention for a moment. He stares at her as if he's trying to figure out how loud he can make her scream, and O'Neill wishes he weren't thinking of this as a good thing, because if Nekheny has a _thing_ for Dani, maybe she'll survive. For long enough.

"Great Lord Ra is immortal," Nekheny says, looking back to him. But he's looking interested now. "I will permit you to tell me more of this weapon you claim to possess -- so that my knowledge may serve my father."

O'Neill's trying to make up his mind whether to play hard to get or to start giving Nekheny Nuclear Warhead 101. He doesn't get to make the call.

"Why should he?" Dani asks. "You're going to murder all of us."

"I can make you beg for death," Nekheny growls. He steps up to the door so quickly that Dani flinches back. O'Neill was expecting something like this. He doesn't move.

"Let's say that each of us has something the other wants," O'Neill says. "I've got information about a weapon that can turn this entire place into a ball of radioactive gas. You've got ... us." He works the chain off from around his neck and holds it up. "Here's the key. But you need more than this."

Nekheny smiles, as if this is a great joke. " _Tau'ri_ insect! We lifted your kind out of savagery -- do you think I cannot comprehend your toys?" He waves a hand -- the one with the gold glove-jewel on it -- and the doors go dark and slide back. They could jump him now -- O'Neill sees Kawalsky getting ready, and everyone else is awake and on their feet too -- but O'Neill's betting those four Jaffa are hovering just down the hall, and those odds suck. "But it amuses me to indulge you. Give me the key."

"Where will you go?" Dani asks quickly. "Will Apep swear fealty to you?"

From the look on Nekheny's face, the answer to that is 'no,' but O'Neill'd rather she hadn't brought up killing Ra at all, because he suspects Nekheny's still on the fence. 

"You might want a place to regroup while any misunderstandings get straightened out. I'm willing to deal." Out of the corner of his eye, O'Neill sees Dani turn toward him, looking confused. 

"Jack! You--"

She's still more puzzled than horrified, and that's not what he needs from her right now. "I'm trying to keep you alive," he snaps at her. "It's simple. Nekheny takes us back where we came from, I get him clear of the holding pen, and from Cheyenne Mountain he can conquer Earth in about fifteen minutes. I figure that might be worth our lives."

"You can't do that!" She lunges for the chain he's still dangling. Nekheny's faster. He snatches the chain; O'Neill grabs Dani and slings her toward the back of the cell before Nekheny can hit her again. Kawalsky gets a hold of her before she can come bouncing back.

"Jack! Don't!" she shouts, trying to get herself untangled from Kawalsky. "You don't understand! _He can do it!_ " Whatever else Dani wants to say about his plan is muffled; Kawalsky's gotten a hand over her mouth. 

"Which is why I'm planning to be on the winning side." He can't risk looking around to see how his team is taking this, and he didn't have a chance to warn them beforehand. Kawalsky's looking worried, though. That should help sell this. "Sure, I'm sorry for the Abydans. But we can't beat you guys, so I figure on selling out while I can still get a good price. We got a deal?"

Nekheny raises his hand; his eyes glow. That's all O'Neill has time to see before he goes flying across the cell and hits the back wall.

Hard.

#

O'Neill isn't sure how long he's been out when the fact that he hurts _everywhere_ convinces him that against all expectation, he must still be alive. The last time everything hurt this much was when his 'chute failed during a HALO insertion. He groans and tries to sit up. He's lying on something.

"Oh, good. You're awake. I'd hate for you to miss our _execution._ "

Dani.

"Nice to see you, too, sweetheart." He tries again, and makes it to a sitting position this time. He forces his eyes open. The bright lights are flashing behind his eyes in time with his heartbeat, and the room feels as if it's revolving around him.

"We were thinking you might not wake up, Colonel," Kawalsky says, and O'Neill knows that tone. It's _oh thank god I'm not the senior officer in the room now._

"I'd hate to miss--" He has to stop and breathe, because puking all over himself isn't going to raise anybody's morale. "--hate to miss the show," he finishes. Everybody's sitting around looking at him -- except for Dani; apparently he was lying on her. "What time is it?"

"Should be about dawn." Kawalsky's got his 'good officer' voice on now, and O'Neill thinks that he didn't quite close the deal with Nekheny, but he knows his boys are wondering how much of that was real. He was separated from them for most of the day. Enough time to make a deal -- or decide he should.

"So about now the villagers are bringing the tribute -- and the bomb," he says. "Dr. Jackson here made a good case for why Nekheny's going to want to use it against Ra." Kawalsky nods; O'Neill doesn't know how much any of them heard when he and Dani were talking earlier; she must have run it down for them while he was unconscious. "And if he does, he'll want to hide out afterward, just in case the old man's got anybody around who wants to avenge him. That's where we come in."

He hears the rustle of fabric as Dani gets to her feet. "By handing him Earth, because, dammit, you know--"

"Shaw said you can only go one way through a Stargate," he says, cutting her off. "We get him there, I push him back through the Event Horizon." 

"You'll die," Dani says. He doesn't answer. She walks away.

Kawalsky helps him to his feet; a nice gesture because he isn't sure he'd make it otherwise.

"What if he's too chicken, sir?" Mankiewicz asks. In the last two months, O'Neill's learned that he can _always_ rely on Mankiewicz to ask the awkward question.

"Then I guess we go get executed. Depending on what Ra's got in mind--"

"It will be public." Dani's on the other side of the cell. She's facing the door, her arms wrapped around herself, shoulders hunched, not looking at any of them. "Don't you get it? Don't any of you _get it_ yet? Ra is _Ra._ He's a god. He's the oldest god there is -- older than human history, older than human civilization. It doesn't matter whether or not he intends to kill the Nagadans. He'll want them to die believing in him."

"Good to know," O'Neill says briskly. "I hope he won't be too upset if we don't go quietly. Gentlemen?"

He hears quiet laughter and feels the release of tension; they're with him again. And they have a Plan A and a Plan B in place, and he hopes they don't need a Plan C, but if they do, he'd really like Dani to remember that her entire purpose in life now is to make herself interesting enough to Nekheny that he'll keep her alive and show her his shiny new thermonuclear warhead. He glances at his watch, and then gives the room his back because he doesn't want anybody to see how damned hard it is to focus on the numbers. Doesn't feel like a concussion exactly. More like having been caught in the blast wave of an explosion. At least he's not bleeding and still breathing. He glares at his watch until the numbers come clear. He's gotten pretty good at fitting the 36-hour local day to the time kept by a 24-hour watch in the last two months. By his reckoning, they're about thirty minutes past local sunrise now.

"Company," Ferretti says softly, a moment before O'Neill hears the rhythmic tramp of boots from the corridor.

Nekheny's changed his clothes -- they're doing _Julius Caesar_ now instead of _Aida_ \-- and this time he's got sixteen Jaffa with him. The little white skirt and the big gold breastplate -- plus some kind of headdress that makes him look like his head is coming out of a bird's beak -- makes Nekheny look like a psychopath on his way to a costume party. O'Neill clamps down -- _hard_ \-- on his imagination, because what Nekheny _really_ looks like is something that makes his hands itch for a weapon. He thinks that things that look the way Nekheny looks shouldn't be let to live, and then he locks the thought away deep. No time for it now. Focus. Nekheny's wearing a gold wrist-bracer with a big blue jewel in it. Except for the color -- the Jaffa have silver ones -- it looks the same. After his experience with the glove, O'Neill's betting the wrist-bracer isn't just for decoration.

Nekheny waves the door open while the Jaffa do their drill-team thing again, forming up into a box for the eight of them to walk into. He doesn't bother using English this time, but he's either saying "follow me" or "bring the Earthling scum," so it doesn't really matter. O'Neill nods to Kawalsky, and out they come. 

Dani tries to hang back. O'Neill isn't sure whether she's hoping to be left behind, or thinking of making a break for it, but Kawalsky circles back around for her. O'Neill can hear him saying something to her, but it's quiet and brief enough that neither the Jaffa or Nekheny react. Off they go, and the Jaffa close in on them enough that they're walking single file. He turns his head just enough to see that Kawalsky's put Dani as close to the middle of the line as he can.

Whatever's going on, Nekheny's in a hurry. They're moving along at a pretty good clip. 

"Don't suppose you're in the mood to grant a guy any last requests," O'Neill says. 

No reaction. He tries to start up a conversation a couple of times. Nothing. He was hoping for some heads-up from Nekheny to give him a clue whether they're heading for their execution or he's taken the deal, but Nekheny isn't playing. O'Neill's got no idea where they're going, but when the last set of doors opens and he sees pink marble, he starts to worry that he's called this wrong. If they're back where they started from, it doesn't look like Nekheny's turning on the old man or that they're getting that nice public execution Dani promised him, either. 

He's got a pretty good map of the place in his head, and some of the landmarks are distinctive. They're heading back to the light-box room. When they pass a window, O'Neill can see that it's just after dawn; he was right about the timing. The windows are still open -- they don't look like they close -- and he'd kind of like to know how that works out when this thing leaves atmosphere, but not enough to be here for it.

They reach the light-box room. It's the only piece of furniture here: looking at it from the outside, he can see it's a giant gold box on a pedestal. Nekheny gestures, and four of the Jaffa start toward a big silver circle inlaid in the floor. It's maybe eight feet across. Before they can get there, it shoots up toward the ceiling -- suddenly it's a whole stack of disks, making a noise like a turbocharged Slinky -- and when the rings fall back into the floor again, Ra's standing there with two Jaffa. He points at Nekheny and yells something, sounding really pissed, and O'Neill doesn't need Dani to tell him that they were all supposed to be out of here before Ra got back, and Ra got back early.

Ra's Jaffa point their bang-sticks at Nekheny, and Nekheny's got the numbers to take them and probably Ra too, except for the fact that half his troops have hit their knees, and the other half are standing stunned. Ra's Jaffa rack their bang-sticks, and the tips open and start to sizzle. 

"Now!" O'Neill shouts. He grabs the bang-stick away from the nearest fence-sitter just as all hell breaks loose.

They'd have been dead in the first thirty seconds if a few of Nekheny's Jaffa hadn't picked a side and jumped in front of him. Ra's Jaffa shoot them down, and Nekheny's shouting something. Most of his Jaffa apparently decide they're going to be dead either way so they'll follow the new guy, but a couple of them are loyalists, and it gets ugly fast. Ra's no idiot; he goes running. And the only question that leaves is: _where the hell is the bomb?_

Nekheny's got a clear shot at the ring, now, but what he doesn't have is _them_ : most of O'Neill's boys are armed now and all of them have scattered, and Nekheny hesitates for just long enough that O'Neill risks standing up to take a shot at him. He hits him square in the chest. There's a bright flash, and he sees that Nekheny doesn't have a scratch on him. Nekheny raises his hand -- the one with the glove -- and O'Neill ducks out of the way. A chunk of wall explodes behind him.

They could still turn this around right here -- the reason you hear so much about the quick and the dead so much is that your average firefight is over in under two minutes -- except for the fact that a couple dozen more Jaffa come running. The Jaffa may be Ra's stormtroopers, but O'Neill's already gotten the idea that when something really _unusual_ happens, they're slow to adapt. His team and Nekheny's Jaffa -- and Nekheny -- take out almost half of them before the rest of them get the idea that nobody here is going to just _surrender_.

O'Neill signals his team to pull back, heading for the corridor -- lucky them, to get ambushed in one of the rooms on this thing with multiple entrances -- and he looks for Dani, hoping she's still alive.

She is. And she's on the other side of the room crouched behind the box. He can't get to her. 

He puts her out of his mind. They're all dead anyway. It sucks, but the mission's accomplished. Just then Nekheny makes a dive for the circle on the floor. Two Jaffa lunge to intercept him. They don't quite get there before the rings go up, then down, and he's gone. The Jaffa have been cut in half. 

And now the ground rules have changed, because those rings must be some kind of elevator down to the surface, and O'Neill's got to figure out how to follow him, and fast. If Nekheny gets through the Stargate, it doesn't matter where he's going. Earth's Stargate will be an open secret. He starts toward the rings. 

"We got company!" Freeman shouts. And they do. More Jaffa coming up the corridor behind them.

But suddenly there's a roaring loud enough to drown out the sound the bang-sticks make. The floor lurches and tilts and anybody who's standing either falls or staggers. It gives his boys a beat of advantage over the Jaffa coming up behind, but it's their last one. Ra's planning to cut and run, and just as O'Neill's thinking it's a damned stupid idea to take off when somebody's hidden a _fucking goddamned bomb_ somewhere on your spaceship, six more Jaffa -- bareheaded -- come trotting in as if they haven't noticed there's a pitched battle going on here. Four of them are pulling escort duty. The two in the middle are carrying a tray. On the tray is his nuke. Three places on the display are lit. They've got minutes. 

And nobody -- on either side -- seems to be shooting at the bomb-Jaffa, until suddenly one of the escort-Jaffa goes down. Dani's standing beside the box -- a perfect target -- with a bang-stick in her hands. He doesn't know whether she can see what the Jaffa are carrying without her glasses, or if she's just shooting anything that isn't wearing black.

They ship's still going up.

Most of the Jaffa are dead now, and the bomb squad is stepping over the bodies with insane obliviousness, heading for the ring. Dani takes out two more of the escort -- probably by accident, since the bang-sticks don't seem to be accurate at a distance of more than eight feet -- and that convinces the last one to do something useful, like _shoot her_. O'Neill shouts at Kawalsky to cover his six, and runs into the center of the room; he needs the angle for the shot. Gets it. Now there are only the two bomb-Jaffa trying to get to the rings. 

He doesn't see Dani when he looks back toward the gold box, but one of the two surviving bomb-Jaffa is shouting -- sounds like orders -- so O'Neill shoots him, too. There's weaponsfire behind them in the corridor, but his team can hold the hostiles for a minute or two. He gets the last of the escort-Jaffa, and now nobody's paying any attention to the bomb, because there's nobody left. 

He can see the curve of the planet now. He heads for the nearest Jaffa and wrenches the blue-stone wrist-band off. He has to get where Nekheny went before Nekheny gets away. Too bad these things don't come with an owner's manual, but he points it at the circle on the floor and pushes the button, and the rings go up, then down. He's two steps across the room toward it when he has to throw himself flat again to keep from getting shot. More reinforcements coming in the other way. Too many, and the rest of the team has problems of its own.

And then Dani jumps up from behind one of the bodies -- right into the bang-stick fire -- and starts shouting at the top of her lungs. She's pointing in the direction of the Throne Room. 

The Jaffa stop shooting, turn around, and leave.

"This way! This way! Jack! Charlie! Let them through!" Now it's English, thank god.

"Do it!" he shouts. 

Ferretti and Brown are the first into the room. Freeman follows. Kawalsky's carrying Porro. Mankiewicz is bleeding, but he's on his feet. Dani goes running the other way -- toward the Jaffa following them. She's slipping and skidding on the angled floor, using a bang-stick as a walking staff, and _still_ managing to scream at the top of her lungs in Ancient Egyptian. 

"Kawalsky, your ride's here!" O'Neill yells. There's enough space inside the circle for four friendly people, and Kawalsky knows as well as he does that Nekheny has to be stopped; he doesn't stop to set Porro down. O'Neill sends Brown after him. He doesn't know where the other Jaffa've gone, but they aren't here.

"Jack, I think I--" And apparently Dani thinks this is the perfect time for a _chat_.

"Go-go-go!" He grabs for her and misses as she skitters back; Brown jumps out of the rings and nails her, yanking her back and into the circle so hard she drops her bang-stick. O'Neill presses the blue button again. When the rings come down again, they're empty. Now it's him, Mankiewicz, Ferretti, and Freeman. They take their places in the circle, and as they do, he looks across the room and sees the counter on the SADM click over to a single digit. Nine seconds. He presses the button again. 

Up -- down -- a feeling like being on the worst elevator ride of his life -- and they're somewhere else. 

He doesn't even have a moment to be grateful that this thing still worked from near-orbit, because they're in the Stargate Chamber and the Stargate is active and he doesn't see the rest of his team. Nekheny's standing in front of the Dial Home Device, and he's got Dani by the arm. She's turning herself inside-out to either get away or kill him, but whichever it is, it isn't working. Nekheny starts dragging her toward the Stargate. O'Neill knows the bang-stick bolts will just bounce off; he has to try anyway.

But before he can raise his bang-stick to firing position, Sha're steps out from behind a pillar on the opposite side of the chamber. She's holding one of their M60s, and she doesn't even hesitate before pulling the trigger. Flash and roar -- and they all throw themselves flat. 

Sha're burns through everything in the clip in seconds -- it has to be one of the ones they were using in Nagada; they were set to Full Auto. It doesn't hurt Nekheny, but it startles him. O'Neill sees Dani hit the ground -- not hit, he thinks, but Nekheny let go of her when Sha're started firing. The instant the firing stops, O'Neill's up and moving, but he can't get there before Nekheny zaps Sha're with his glove. She goes flying.

O'Neill's still got his bang-stick, but he knows it's useless. Time to improvise. Forget shooting the guy; O'Neill just hits him. He's expecting more sci-fi lightshow, but the bang-stick connects solidly. Nekheny staggers. He doesn't go down, so O'Neill hits him again -- the whole point here is to get him away from the Stargate, away from the Dial Home Device, away from Dani. He stays in close, but his advantage is only going to last seconds, unless he can come up with something that will _finish_ the guy. He shoves the business end of the bang-stick under Nekheny's chin and fires it. It doesn't do any damage, but the flash is bright and it kicks like a mule. Nekheny goes sprawling -- right across the edge of the silver circle in the floor -- and O'Neill remembers what happened to the Jaffa. He drops the bang-stick and presses the blue button on the wrist-band. The rings go up. Only half of Nekheny goes with them.

The Event Horizon collapses.

"Did we win?" Mankiewicz asks uncertainly.

"God, I hope so," O'Neill answers tiredly.

#

When the tribute is brought to the Stargate Chamber, the Iunians light braziers of aromatic woods and incense in honor of Great Lord Ra. It's a damned good thing, because otherwise, there'd be no light in here at all. As it is, there's barely enough for them to find Gian, Charlie, and Deke.

Jack comes and lifts her to her feet, and patting her quickly all over as if he's doing a Customs inspection -- checking for wounds, Dani only realizes later -- then walks off without a word (as she's trying to explain to him about having been ambushed) to help Lou and Chris search.

Sha're.

Dani hurries off into the dark, beyond the range of the braziers' dim illumination, and finds Sha're by the expedient of falling over her. Sha're isn't really unconscious, though, or even badly hurt. Dani helps her to her feet, and they cling together wordlessly for a moment.

_< "The god, Dana're,"> _ Sha're whispers.

_< "Was not a god. And is dead,"> _ Dani answers. _< "You saved us, Sha're. You saved my land."> _

_< "I saved my sister,"> _ Sha're answers.

#

Kasuf's said that no matter how much water the Nagadans have ever taken out of the well here at the pyramid, the level of the water never gets any lower, so Dani's actually been able to have a _real bath._ Or the closest you can get to one on a world without bathtubs, anyway. Jack has handed out most of the contents of the campsite (now that it's accessible) since they won't be needing them (and oh, they'd brought a _whole case_ of MRE's with them, and she'd stolen the packets of instant coffee and instant cocoa out of most of them and it was _good_ ). They did set up their tents and solar canopy, and are using them, but they're planning to leave them behind too. Dani doubts the Nagadans will have much use for them (as tents, anyway; they'll undoubtedly find a use for the fabric). Jack offered her one of the tents to sleep in last night (she was polite, really she was, and didn't laugh out loud), but it's hardly a contest: the Iunian tents are much nicer than the Air Force ones. They're bigger than her apartment in Chicago (just to begin with), and actually designed for a _desert_ , and they don't blow over during a sandstorm (either). Jack and the others had to put them back up again by torchlight afterward -- the generator and lights hadn't survived the inhumation, since they'd already been unpacked when the sandstorm that buried them had hit.

All of Nagada is living here at the pyramid (goats, _mastadges_ , cats, dogs), but it's only until they leave for the Deep Desert. Sha're says the celebration of their freedom will go on until the moons are full again. Kasuf wants Jack and the rest of them to come along and stay for all of it, but Jack says they have to get home. (Dani doesn't need to spend hours of trial-and-error searching for the seventh symbol now; she watched Nekheny press the keys for Earth's code on the Dial Home Device.) 

So much has happened so fast. Yesterday they killed gods. Tomorrow they're going back to Earth. 

Jack (she knows) would rather have left already, but it isn't (he says) polite to run out on "the world's biggest block party" without staying for a little while. It's not that as much as that he's collecting information to take back with him. (Dani tries not to regret the destruction of all her notes. If it's the price to pay for all the Iunians being alive, it's a small one.) One of the things Jack salvaged (intact and useable) from his campsite was a video camera (the military mind will baffle her till the end of time), and she's spent the morning with him and Brown (and nearly all the children of Nagada) in the Cartouche Room, filming the walls. He says he wants to get enough recordings to make a real impression when they gets back. Dani's told him to be sure to get pictures of the wall paintings in the pyramid, too, but she isn't sure he understands why they're so important.

It's nice here in the afternoon -- if you're sensible and stay _out of the sun_ \-- and she can hear the squeals of children and one of the soldiers -- maybe Gian -- shouting gleefully outside the tent where she sits. (Jack told her that Gian was hurt back at Nagada; Gian told her his momma always said that his head's his least vulnerable part.) Because of Jack's generosity with his team's supplies, the Nagadan children have now been introduced to the wonders of the Frisbee. (Who brings a Frisbee to an alien planet? Might as well ask who brings a copy of _Hustler_.) This is the worst time of day to be out and running around, but all the soldiers do; she thinks it will be a minor miracle if the men who survived the Alien Legions From Hell don't kill themselves with sunstroke before they can walk back through the Stargate. 

There are a dozen women here in the tent, and almost twice that many children -- some of the youngest, the ones whose mothers and aunts can browbeat them into a long nap when the sun is hottest. The older ones -- boys and girls both -- are taking full advantage of the traditional license of being in tents to run absolutely wild. On Iunu, if you want to say something only a _little_ mean about somebody, you say they have "tent manners," and everybody understands. Dani thinks the English equivalent might be "raised in a barn," and she has the feeling that Kasuf might think that there's nothing on Earth _but_ tents. 

She's so glad he -- Skaara, Sha're, everyone-- survived what Nekheny's Jaffa did at Nagada. The Jaffa (Sha're told her later) had fired over everyone's heads. And -- Dani should have thought of that herself -- not in the direction of Ra's sacred symbol. The Great Hall had been partly-destroyed, but no one had been killed. And now no one has to fear Ra or Ra's Jaffa ever again. She'd only been guessing when she told Nekheny that Ra meant to kill them, but when they'd all come walking out through the entrance to the pyramid, all of the villagers had been gathered at its foot -- every man, every woman, even the youngest children. Skaara told Jack (through her) that Ra had sent orders that all of them were supposed to bring the tribute this time, and she thinks (so does Jack) that it must have been so that Ra could kill them all right there. So they'd all been there to see Ra's ship take off. And explode.

But if Jack and Sha're hadn't done what they did, Dani's not sure that would have made a difference to Earth. If Nekheny had gotten there, he could have taken over a whole military base. And maybe taken over General West the same way he did Gary. (Jack says she's just as much the savior of Earth as he is, as Sha're is: if Nekheny hadn't wasted time grabbing her and dragging her over to the Dial Home Device, he could have gone through the Stargate before Jack could have gotten there. Dani isn't sure she believes it. Jack's the one who figured out a way to kill him. And if Deke hadn't shoved her out of the circle and onto her face the instant they arrived, Nekheny would just have zapped her along with him and Charlie.)

Sha're won't talk about it to anyone, and she's asked Dani not to speak of what she did inside the pyramid either (and seeing how the Nagadans behave toward Jack and the other soldiers, Dani thinks Sha're's probably has the right idea), but she's said -- for Dani's ears alone -- that she stole one of the guns from the tribute baskets before they'd left Nagada, and hid it beneath her robes. She'd gone with the tribute bearers into the Stargate Chamber, and slipped away from them afterward to hide. No one would question her disappearance.

Dani still doesn't know what spurred Sha're to an act of such unimaginable bravery. Maybe Sha're couldn't stand to lose two sisters, even if one of them was an adopted stranger. Maybe she'd believed Dani when she'd said that Ra wasn't a god, but a monster. Maybe she'd known what Ra's demand that the Nagadans all gather at the pyramid really meant. It's something Sha're won't talk about, even to Dani.

But she thinks she knows. Some of the answer, at least. When they'd all walked outside and stood at the top of the stairs, looking down at all of those people, Sha're had taken a step forward, raising her arms above her head in triumph.

_< "We are free!"> _ Sha're had shouted. _< "Free!"> _

The sound of cheering had beat against the stone of the pyramid like the sound of surf, and Sha're had wept, and Dani knows that the reason Sha're stayed behind doesn't matter. It's all of them. It's none of them. 

When she first saw the pyramid, she'd wondered if people ever watched from the foot of the steps. Now she knows the answer.

_Once. And never again._

_< "What are you thinking, sister?"> _ Sha're asks her. She moves to sit down, setting her workbasket by her side. It's full of roving and Sha're has a spindle in her hands. She's been trying to teach Dani to spin, but it's slow work. 

_< "Oneer wishes to return through the _chappa'ai _tomorrow," > _ Dani answers. And of course it would never occur to Jack that she wouldn't want to go. But she's spent so long planning to be somewhere else -- Chicago to New York to Colorado Springs to Iunu -- and once she was here she wasn't worrying about being somewhere else, because she was pretty sure she was going to be dead. And now she isn't. And the moment she had a chance to catch her breath -- somewhere around sunset yesterday -- a thought occurred to her that hasn't gone away. 

Jack's going to go home and say that Gary's dead. Why can't he just say that they _both_ are?

What is there for her on Earth? Nothing she doesn't have with her already. (She's still a little afraid that something might have happened to her baby while she was on Ra's ship, but Akiqa is a midwife, and last night she examined Dani thoroughly and swore that everything was fine.) She knows she doesn't know a lot about the technology of the modern world, but hey: she's pretty well-versed in the high tech of 3000 BCE. She could be useful here. She could fit in, make a place for herself, stay with her family -- her new family (people who want her, a place she understands). Better, much better, than trying to raise a baby by herself and keep a job, too (she knows life is hard on Iunu -- she _will_ call it that, because it's what Sha're and everyone else here calls it, and she said that "Abydos" was a stupid name in the first place and she was _right_ \-- and she'd have to work, but the so-called 'primitive' cultures don't have the horrible American compartmentalization that divides 'work' and 'children' so devastatingly). Sha're wants to learn to read and write. Nearly all the women have already asked her to teach them, and Dani thinks she can encourage a lot of the younger boys to learn too. She could have a lifetime to study this Ancient Egypt. To repair the damage caused by their enslavement by Ra's race.

Besides, she overheard Charlie and Lou talking about how many tests the doctors were probably going to run on all of them when they got back, and once the doctors get their hands on her, so much for secrets. She won't do that to Jack. Even if she told him the truth -- that it was an _accident_ \-- she knows he'd feel responsible. It's not as if he was actually thrilled to see her when she showed up in Nagada. Okay, he was _busy_ , but the Giza Project is over and he'll probably be going off to do ... whatever he did before, because it won't need him now, will it?

It certainly won't need her. If everything had gone according to plan -- if Gary had found the Dialing Symbols, if the seven of them had walked back through the Gate two hours after they'd left -- she'd already be gone. Jack said he'd ask if she could go to Iunu when they came back, but (knowing what she knows now about why he really went and what he was looking for) she doubts General West would have agreed. And Jack would have asked what she planned to do now that she was finished at Project Giza. 

She hopes (hindsight isn't really helpful) that she wouldn't have embarrassed herself by suggesting she could stay in Colorado Springs. He wouldn't have wanted that. She thinks she'd have been smart enough to guess. It wouldn't take her long to untangle herself from his life. Empty another bank account, pack her bags again, another train station in another city. Leaving is what she's always done best. She's so tired of leaving.

_< "He wishes to return home, to bring word of his victory to his master, and receive rich gifts,"> _ Sha're suggests, when Dani doesn't say anything else. The carven ivory spindle (its shape unchanged from those Dani's seen in museums, ones removed from the tombs of ancient queens) rises and falls, and between Sha're's fingers, puffs of brown fluff become a thread.

_< "Yes. And no. I mean, yes, he wishes to tell He-Who-Holds-The-Service-of-Oneer--">_ there's simply no way to render "Air Force General" in this language and have it make _sense <"--that he has been successful. And to return to things which are familiar to him. But all that he did here ... oh, I do not know, Sha're! Perhaps he _will _receive rich gifts." > _

_< "And you? You spoke to me once of the reward you would receive, enough to keep you and the child if Oneer cast you from his tent, so you said."> _ Sha're sounds not so much disbelieving as disapproving, and the image makes Dani smile and shake her head at the same time; it shouldn't be as funny as it is, except that now it's irrevocably wedded in her mind to Jack's expression last night when he came out of Kasuf's tent and saw that the sandstorm had knocked all of his fancy high-tech military camping gear flat as a pancake. Again. 

_< "He will not cast me from his tent. It is not that way between us. I have said: it was a thing that would always end, and now it has. If I returned, I would receive the reward for my service; that much is true. I have incurred no shame."> _

Sha're, she knows, will think of 'shame' -- incurred or otherwise -- only in connection with failing to perform some duty. Dani had wondered when she arrived if her pregnancy would upset the Nagadans -- since both 'bastardy' and 'virginity' are such obsessions of so many cultures -- but it's not true here. There aren't enough _people_ on Iunu for them to be able to afford that sort of toxic luxury. Every child is welcomed. A gift. Disgrace falls only upon the man who will not provide for his children and their mother. (Or mothers; since Iunu is polygamous.) The corollary of course is that there is social pressure on every woman to bear children; Dani wonders if any of that will change now that the Nagadans aren't frantically trying to provide slaves and slave labor for alien gods. 

_< "You speak of your return as if it is not a certain thing. Yet I had thought..."> _ Sha're says tentatively. She holds the spindle in her lap and looks at Dani.

_< "There is nothing for me in my own land,"> _ Dani says in a rush. She touches her stomach -- there's no one here to see except people who already know her secret. _< "If you-- If Kasuf--"> _

_< "How should your father not wish his daughter beneath his roof?"> _ Sha're asks, as if there's no other possibility. _< "There is a great feast tonight--"> _

_< "Greater than the one _last _night?" > _ Dani asks. Even Charlie ate the sand-turtle and said it was the best he ever had.

_< "--and together we shall speak to Oneer, you and I, and say to him that it is not possible for you to leave your father's house."> _ Sha're says, ignoring her teasing.

"I don't think he'll buy that," Dani mutters in English. But she needs to tell him she's staying _sometime._ Preferably before they're all standing on the steps of the Stargate.

"Hello in there?" Jack says from outside. "Dani? Skaara said you were here -- okay, not exactly, but--"

She leaps to her feet, and rushes to the doorway as he's about to enter. "You can't come in here," she says. "This is a Women's Tent."

He steps backward hastily, muttering something about 'signs.' The Nagadans _have_ put up signs (only the inviolable Women's Tents have a pennon flying from the centerpole spike); and he shouldn't be walking into _any_ tent without being invited, although the Slayer of Ra can probably take a few liberties with local custom. Skaara should still have come with him. _< "Your brother is very wicked,"> _ Dani says over her shoulder, and Sha're just laughs. _< "You must not speak so of your future husband."> _

"Can you come out?" Jack asks warily. Dani turns back to Sha're, who makes shoo-ing noises. She ducks outside. 

"You should be wearing your--" She makes waving motions at his cowl. He makes a face and pulls it up. He's wearing a short tunic with it -- it's supposed to be outerwear, but he's wearing it as a shirt. Charlie's complained that they'll all be out of uniform when they go back, and it's true: Jack's shirt was in rags, Carl was practically naked, and there's a _reason_ that people from desert cultures cover every possible inch of their skins.

"Wasn't planning to be out here long," he says (as if the sun cares about that). "I was looking for you. I figured you'd want to help me figure out which of those pictures in the pyramid I should shoot." He brandishes the camera. It looks like a camcorder, though only about half the size. 

"All of them, really," she says. "But I suppose you don't have that much film." She just hopes the tapes have survived both the heat and two months of burial beneath the sand. 

He grins at her. "No film at all. It's a new thing. Digital. It stores the pictures in its memory." He brandishes the camera. 

"How do you get them out?" she asks dubiously.

"Plug it into a computer. It can enhance the images, too. You'll see when we get back."

She follows him back to the pyramid, and they spend the rest of the afternoon taking pictures of the frescoes until Jack says the camera is full. She has no idea how he knows; he offered to show her how to work it, but she was terrified that she'd just _break it_ , and then all the pictures would be gone. They're alone together for hours, and it's the perfect time to have an important private conversation (to explain that she'll never see the pictures the camera takes because she isn't going back). The only conversation they have is Part Two of _'I Can't Believe The Jaffa Left Just Because You Told Them To'._ It's what happened, though. She'd told them that Ra had ordered them to attend him at once, and apparently they couldn't believe anyone would lie about something like that. She thinks it's fascinating (and says so much about Ra's culture of enslavement). Jack says that on his planet they spell 'fascinating' 'scary as hell.'

Jack doesn't say anything about his plans for tomorrow, or all the tomorrows after that. And neither does she.

#

Tonight's feast is more elaborate than yesterday's. The Iunians have had a full day to prepare, and they know they won't get another chance to feed 'the strangers who delivered them from Great Lord Ra's mercy', so they're intending to make it memorable. Dani and Sha're serve the high table as usual (Dani calls it that in her mind, though here everyone's sitting on the floor) before taking their seats. It would already feel odd to her if she _didn't_ , even though Carl makes jokes about 'proper women' until Deke smacks him on the back of the head and tells him to shut his Cracker face (which is perfectly ridiculous, as Carl's from Boston, as anyone could tell the moment he opens his mouth). She settles in between Jack and Sha're, and does her best to actually _eat_ in between playing telephone. Everyone has questions (for Jack and his men, and they have questions, too) and Dani realizes, watching Jack's soldiers joke with the Nagadans, that even in the village, not knowing there was any immediate danger, they'd all been wary. Watchful. Now they aren't -- or not as much. They're going home tomorrow, and they'd thought they never would, and everyone's happy.

For some reason, tonight Sha're is determined to find out from Jack every detail of what women wear on Earth, and he doesn't know, and Dani doesn't really, and she doesn't have the Iunian vocabulary even when she _does_. She does her best. Jack thinks its funny. Of course.

_< "--and say also this: you wish to remain among us, so that your child may be raised by his family, and you must say to Oneer that there is no shame to him in allowing you to follow your heart, and that his name will never be forgotten, and his child will always know the name of his sire and do him all honor,"> _ Sha're says, nodding toward Jack.

"Sha're wishes me to tell you-- _< I will not say these words to him! >"_ Dani says indignantly.

_< "He must know of his child, Dana're. He has the right. Say my words, so his shame may be lifted, or must I ask Kasuf-our-father to speak them?"> _ Sha're says. She has a stubborn set to her jaw all of a sudden.

_< "If you wish Oneer to hear these words, you must learn his tongue and say them yourself,"> _ Dani snaps. _< "He will not have them of my throat if we sit here for a thousand years."> _

_< "Then let it be so,"> _ Sha're says, nodding.

Dani's turning back to Jack. She has to say _something_ , he can recognize their version of his name when he hears it. Dani isn't looking when Sha're reaches across her to take his hand and set it on top of hers. He looks at her, puzzled, but Dani's already turning back to Sha're.

Sha're is looking at Jack. Her arms are folded in front of her, cradling an invisible baby. There aren't that many culturally-exclusive ways to rock a baby; the sign-language is perfectly clear. Sha're makes a rocking motion, smiling (pleased, triumphant), then points.

At Jack. At her.

Jack is still holding her hand. Dani yanks hers free just as his begins to tighten over it and leaps to her feet. Sha're's pleased smile fades -- Dani doesn't know what Jack looks like at the moment, but she knows _she's_ horrified. In Sha're's world, people want babies, and men want women. 

_"Dani!"_

The tent is jammed with people -- there are feasts being held all over the camp, though of course everyone wants to be here -- but there's a clear path between her and the door. Jack is getting to his feet, but he's not used to sitting cross-legged on the ground for hours the way she is, and he's trying not to _kick_ anybody. As she reaches the doorway of the tent Jack shouts her name again -- and then yells at Charlie to grab her -- but she's already past where Charlie's sitting. 

Out. Free. Far above, torchlight spills from the entrance the pyramid (the older Iunians are a little skittish, but the younger ones are fascinated). She could hide in the catacombs, but she'd never make it up the steps in time. 

She runs.

Stupid dramatic gesture -- all Jack has to do is wait until sunrise drives her back to the tent -- but she is so tired of being reasonable, of pretending not to care when monsters wearing dead flesh look at her and lick their lips and smile, of saying _yes_ and _yes_ and _yes_ and going quietly. The night is bright enough for her to see where she's going, and even though the sand beneath her sandals is soft and slippery and hard to run in, she knows how to manage. It's her history. She learned to walk in erg-desert. 

She hears Jack shout behind her again, demanding that she stop, come back--

_(be reasonable)_

\--and she's done with that, done with everything. She doesn't care that she can't outrun him, that she doesn't have any place to run _to_. Old news. Story of her life. 

The Great Pyramid at Giza is 745 feet on a side. The Great Pyramid of Iunu is twice as large -- nearly a third of a mile on each side. The south side of the pyramid -- where the well is -- is in shadow. That's where she's headed. Maybe it will hide her. 

But Jack catches up to her before she reaches it. He grabs for her shoulder and the impact pushes her forward and she's staggering, falling, but he's caught her, shielding her from the fall with his body. She gasps at the impact, struggling away almost before they land. Useless. She's too winded to run any longer.

Jack gets to his feet, brushing sand from his pants. "Where did you think you were _going_?" he demands. Proprietary outrage, and she thinks of Simon, and Jack is nothing like Simon, but she's angry anyway, because anger is better than fear.

"I don't care."

"You--" She hears him breathe in harshly, and it's as if he's debating whether to be reasonable and deciding against it. "You're _pregnant_? You jumped through the Stargate when you were _pregnant_?" and if everyone didn't know already, they'd know now, because they can probably hear him back on _Earth_. "It's untested technology! _Alien_ technology! It could have killed you -- _both_ of you! _Are you out of your mind_?"

"They were going to _leave_ you here!" She's about to cry, and she knows he'll think it's about him -- fear, submission -- and it's just that tears come so easily these days.

"I was doing my job! You-- You had no right-- What if-- Did you even _think--?_ " He's furious, and it's the echo of every argument with Simon: _Think._ _Think_ about what you're doing, _think_ about how it will look, _think_ about what people will say, _think_ of my position...

She's tired of thinking. Jack doesn't want her, and he doesn't want the baby. 

"Go away. Leave me alone," she says.

She hears him laugh. Anger. Derision. _(Contempt.)_ "Yeah, that's going to happen. I should-- For God's sake, Dani."

She wants to present him with the prepared lie: the baby isn't his, she already knew she was pregnant that night in New York, Sha're was wrong. And she can't. She'd meant to tell him; she had. She'd thought the boy in the photographs was alive, then. But he isn't, and she knows about mourning the unhallowed dead in that desperate final way, unable to go back or forward. She won't use her baby -- unexpected, and she still isn't sure how she feels about it -- to try to force herself into Jack's life. Something she wished for in an unreal fairyland way, and she can't have it, because anything he says to her now will be for the baby's sake. She knows how Jack is with children, now. So damned protective.

"Fine," she says. "Stay here, then. It won't make any difference." She's pleased at how cool and even her voice is. She turns to go. He takes a step toward her. She backs up, and he stops.

"You weren't going to tell me," Jack says, as if it's the most unbelievable thing he's ever heard.

"It's nothing to do with you," she answers.

"It's mine," he says incredulously.

"Mine," she says.

"Ours," he says, offering a compromise, but there's no compromise in his voice.

"There isn't any _us_ ," she says viciously. "I was going to tell you in the morning that I don't want to go back. I'm going to stay here."

"You -- what?" His voice isn't even incredulous, now. He's too stunned.

"I know you don't know that much about me," she says, and even without her glasses, she can see Jack make a face. She doesn't know what he's thinking. It doesn't matter now. "But I grew up in places like this. Iunu can be home for me. All I want--" she feels her throat start to close with tears. "All I want is to be home."

He doesn't say anything. 

"It was an accident. I didn't plan..."

"Dani, do you even _want_ this baby?" he asks, as if that's only now occurred to him. 

And she does. And she doesn't. And she _doesn't know._ It's too soon, too new, too huge a change. She's been thinking about everything _but_ the baby since before she knew there was one. But you can't just send something like that back. And she would never -- _never_ \-- condemn any child to her own childhood. Abandoned. Unwanted. Lost. "I thought you were divorced," she says helplessly. _I thought_ Ka'resh _was with his mother._

"I am," he says quietly. "Sara and I, we just... The day of the... I got drunk, went to my CO, turned in my papers. Three months later they yanked me back for Project Giza. Langford'd just brought in her wonder boy. They thought he was going to get the Stargate working right away. They attached me because if I went through the Stargate, I wouldn't care much about coming back. He was eight. He shot himself with my pistol."

_Ka'resh. Charlie._ Charlie O'Neill, the blond boy with his mother's eyes and his father's smile. She imagines him bleeding, dead. "It was an accident," she says. _Charlie's death. It was an accident._ And she doesn't know, but she hopes, because any child's death is horrible but a child's suicide is infinitely worse...

"Yeah." He sighs. "And Langford didn't get the Stargate open, and I spent the next year and a half trying to climb into a bottle, and somewhere in there Sara left. And then you showed up. And you got the Stargate working, and when I finally went through, I cared about coming back. Good thing," he adds.

"You can go back now. Tomorrow," she says. Maybe he'll let her stay if she doesn't say he has to say she's dead. Maybe they'll want to send a research team here. Catherine could come. She could teach her the language.

"Why did you come to Abydos, Dani?" he asks.

It's almost a replay of the first time she talked to him. Speaking at cross-purposes, their whole non-conversation a collection of non-sequiturs. She knows the answer to this question, though. She came for him. Because he was lost here, and nobody else would, and she couldn't bear that. She'd needed to see him again, even if it was only to say 'goodbye'.

She never imagined a goodbye like this.

"No reason," she says.

"You say I don't know you. Here's what I know. You're 27. Your birthday's July 8th. Your parents both died when you were eight. You were removed from your grandfather's care on the grounds of child endangerment when you were twelve. He released you to the State. You had two custodial placements before suing for Emancipated Minor status at sixteen. You got a full ride at UCLA; spent four years there on an accelerated program and came out with MAs in Linguistics, Archaeology, Anthropology, and History. You did a double PhD program at Harvard, and a second doctoral program at Columbia, after which you went to work at the Oriental Institute. You were there for two years, during which time you had a liaison with Simon Gardner. He dumped you for Marion Fordham. You went to New York. Simon came to us."

She stares at him in disbelief. (How can he know all these things? How can he think that what she is can be reduced to nothing more than a collection of _facts?_ ) "I told Simon my theories. _Then_ he dumped me for Marion. Because I was crazy."

"Maybe. You were also right."

She waves that aside irritably. "But I don't get to-- If I went back, I wouldn't get to tell anybody, would I, Jack? Because those ... papers..." She still isn't sure what they say; she signed all the paperwork -- including a more comprehensive NDA -- in Colorado...

...because Jack told her to, and she'd trusted him, and she hadn't thought it mattered.

"No. You can't. But think. When I go back, I'm going to tell General West what you told me. There are thousands of Stargates, and the Cartouche Room has the addresses for all of them. Earth used to be ruled by evil space aliens, and sure, we killed a couple, but you said there are thousands of them. We'll need to keep the Program going. We need to know what's out here. We'll need your help."

She closes her eyes and turns her back, because she _is_ going to cry now, and she doesn't want him to see. She didn't come to Iunu for the military -- she came for _him_ , and all he has to answer her with is facts and figures and how _useful_ she can be to the people he works for.

_< "Dana're?"> _ Sha're's followed her, or Jack, or both. Her tone is wary. She's heard them -- the whole encampment has probably heard parts of their semi-conversation -- but she doesn't know what they've actually _said._

_< "Rejoice in your weaving, sister! He does not want me. He does not want the child!"> _ Dani says. She tries to hold her voice steady and doesn't manage it this time.

Sha're tosses the torch she's carrying to the sand and steps forward to put her arms around her, and Dani's praying they can just _go_ \-- somewhere, anywhere, that she can cry in peace and decide what to do next -- but Sha're has other plans. _< "You are a terrible man to shame my sister so!"> _ she says fiercely. _< "Go, then! Return to the First World and find a woman there -- if any will have you! I do not think they will, and it does not matter if you are handsome and brave, for you have no heart, and no honor, and--"> _

"Dani? What's she saying?" Jack sounds ... anxious, concerned, all the things he didn't when he was yelling at her. "Look, Sha're. Look-- Dani, you want to help me out here?"

_< "He sounds like a barking dog,">_ Sha're says scornfully. _< "And his words have less worth, for they have made you cry. Come with me, sister. We will return to the feast -- or perhaps to our tent, for I would not wish Kasuf-my-father to hear of this."> _

Dani's torn between wanting to explain to Sha're that Jack isn't a monster -- just a guy who's horrified that his casual girlfriend got knocked up -- and providing Jack with a wildly-inaccurate translation of what Sha're's just said, when she feels Jack carefully pry her out of Sha're's arms.

"That's my job," Jack says. "If my girl's going to cry, I need to find out why and do something about it."

She wants to hit him. She lets him hold her instead, because Sha're may be the first one to follow them, but she won't be the last. She feels him sigh. "That's better. Couldn't do this before. But we're going home now, so now I can." He rests his cheek against her hair. "This is where I start apologizing until I get to the right thing. Okay. I'm sorry I didn't want to take you on a suicide mission to Abydos. I'm sorry I wasn't happier to see you when you marooned yourself here, and that doesn't mean you're off the hook for taking an _insane_ risk when you knew you were pregnant. I'm sorry I couldn't read your mind and figure out what you weren't telling me when you showed up. I'm sorry I didn't tell you ... things ... even while we were all prisoners and Nekheny would just have used it as ammunition. We getting close?"

She shakes her head silently. He sighs. "Yeah. You know, I'm sh-- _crap_ at this parent stuff. I'd still like to give it a try."

"You--" she says (swallowing hard, trying to make the lying tears _stop_ ).

"Wanted to get home because you were there. You stay here, I'm staying too. Of course, that _guarantees_ General West's going to send another team here, just to drag me back for my trial."

"Trial?" Her voice catches and squeaks in her alarm. "But you--"

"AWOL," he says, sounding pleased -- and goddammit, will the man _never_ let her finish a sentence? "Desertion. Dereliction. They might just shoot me right here."

"You're making that up," she tells him indignantly, pushing away far enough to look at him. But she's not quite sure, even though she's gotten a _crash course_ in the military in the last few days.

He smiles at her, just a little. "Probably won't shoot me here. But they'll come and get me. Come on, Dani. The Stargate works. We've got a lot of work to do."

"You're going to leave," she says.

She sees him begin to deny it -- reflex, automatic -- and stop as he thinks. "You mean, leave the Program? Not my call. But if they keep on with it, no. I don't think so." He pulls her back against his chest again. "Doesn't matter. You'd come with me. Both of you," he adds comprehensively.

"I don't-- You don't-- I-- _Jack_ ," she says. "You don't even know me." That stupid biography he recited to the contrary.

"I know you can't cook, you have a tattoo on your back, you were brave enough to mount a one-woman rescue mission, and you're hell on wheels in a fight. I know we're having a baby. I know the only thing that terrifies me more than Ra and his buddies is the thought of what Kawalsky'll get us for a wedding present. C'mon, Dani. You can't miss that. It'll probably be a black velvet painting of Elvis."

She's light-headed with what she thinks he's asking. "You want to marry me?"

"I'm a traditional kind of guy."

"But what about the aliens? And I said I'd teach Sha're to read. And Catherine -- they were going to get rid of her -- she has to get to come here. And--"

"First things first," Jack says firmly. "Say yes."

"I-- I-- I-- Yes," she says.

"And here we go," he says, under his breath, but he isn't talking to her. "Kawalsky! Over here!"

A moment later Charlie comes trotting over, flashlight in hand. Lou and Carl are with him, and she'd like to hide against Jack's chest again, but she settles for scrubbing her face with the corner of her veil. "Colonel?" Charlie says. "Doc? Everything all right?"

_< "Sister? Is all well?"> _ Sha're asks. From her tone of voice -- smug -- she knows perfectly well it is. Now.

_< "Oneer has said he will marry me,"> _ Dani says, taking a deep breath. And if he hasn't said that he loves her -- not in just those words -- she's heard him say it anyway.

"Congratulate me, 'sky. I'm getting married," Jack says.

_< "That is for Kasuf-our-father to say,"> _ Sha're says. She's trying to sound prim, but Dani can hear how hard it is for her not to laugh out loud. _< "If Oneer is able to pay your bride-price, then all is well indeed."> _

"Congratulations, sir," Kawalsky says. "You think Sha're's gonna like Earth?"

"I'm not marrying that--"

"Uh, Jack? We may have a little problem," Dani says.

#

It isn't, of course. Sha're beats the five of them back to the tent (despite Dani telling both Jack and Charlie that Sha're shouldn't be the one who explains any of this to her adoptive father), and when they get there, Dani sees that Sha're is sitting next to Kasuf, talking animatedly. Skaara's right beside her, and if he was happy when Dani was merely his sister and Jack's concubine, he's ecstatic now.

Helping Jack have the necessary conversation with Kasuf is difficult, since everybody -- Sha're and Skaara and a number of other people whose names she isn't entirely certain of -- is talking at once, and all of them want to question Jack about his ability to provide suitably for a daughter of the house of Kasuf, or advise Kasuf on what honors to bestow upon the liberator of Iunu and the slayer of the Great God Ra, or tell Dani how fortunate she is to gain such a fine husband. It doesn't help at all that at one point Jack offers two years' run of National Geographic and his baseball card collection for her person. (Dani's actually in the middle of trying to gloss "baseball card collection" for the members of a society that don't even have _paper_ when she realizes what she's saying and glares at him. He doesn't look at all sorry.)

But it only takes an hour (it would have taken less if they'd just gotten some _peace and quiet_ ) for Kasuf to magnanimously set what Sha're assures Dani is a very low bride-price (for a royal virgin of proven fertility, and that word _can't possibly_ be "virgin," no matter how much it seems to be) -- twenty goats -- and then equally-graciously agree that Jack can pay it later (Dani doesn't bother to explain the part where Kasuf would be entirely within his rights to _keep her_ until Jack figured out some way to get twenty goats through the Stargate). Jack calls the goats her 'dowry', which is completely inaccurate -- the goats are her bride-price; she doesn't come with much of a dowry unless you count her paycheck from Project Giza -- but she'll have time enough to explain it to him later. 

There's even more reason for celebration now -- the news of this fortunate marriage between the Slayer of Ra and the Royal House of Iunu spreads quickly among the tents -- and if anyone had actually been planning to go to bed before dawn, well, that idea's off the table now. Dani would find that more annoying if she had any prospect of taking Jack off privately and _actually having sex with him,_ but not only is there still no chance of that, Kasuf offers him a concubine to take back with him as well -- as a gift -- since his wife is pregnant. (In a polygamous society with its eye on the birthrate -- she explains to Jack, since she can't get out of conveying Kasuf's offer -- expecting the husband of a pregnant women to turn his attentions elsewhere is one way of encouraging him to distribute his favors among his multiple wives and concubines.)

She does get a kiss, however (Kawalsky leads the chorus of hoots and whistles from the commandos; the Iunians make even more noise and shout helpful suggestions). And she does (technically) get to sleep with him, since it's apparently a law of nature that she can't manage to see the end of any formal dinner on Iunu. 

Jack shakes her awake at dawn. Sha're is standing in front of them, holding out her hand.

_< "You must come, Dana're. I have let you sleep as long as I may. But we have scant time for me to prepare you for the journey to your husband's house,"> _ she says.

"Uh." She blinks up at Jack -- he smiles at her -- and then pushes herself stiffly to her feet, yawning. "Be right back. Sha're wants to do some kind of going-away thing with me. _< I come, I come, > _" she adds, for Sha're's benefit.

#

She knows Jack wants to go back through the Stargate about an hour after dawn (her watch, like her glasses, is a casualty of war) because apparently there's some reason that it's better to arrive back at the Project at one time of day than another. She almost doesn't make it.

 _< "If you are not to have a proper _shalo'qui _, at least you may go to the House of Oneer garbed as a proper daughter of the House of Kasuf," > _ Sha're says -- and then she and half the women of the village (it starts out being just Sha're and her maids, but soon nearly all the women are involved) proceed to bathe Dani and oil her, paint her face, and her hands, and her feet (with Sha're bitching the entire time about not having enough time to do this _properly_ ), dress her in about a dozen layers of transparent linen (at least with that many layers she's _covered_ ), and then hang earrings in her ears and necklaces around her throat, and shove bangle after bangle onto her wrists. 

Last of all is the veil. Not the regular one the women wear every day; this is a single square of transparent linen, its hem weighted with tiny disks of gold and shimmering beads and dyed a deep dusky purple. It's long enough to fall to her waist at front and back, and fine enough to see through.

The fabrics she's wearing must have taken _years_ to weave. 

_< "I will come back, Sha're,"> _ Dani says, swallowing hard. _< "I swear. I promise. I will come back."> _

_< "Hush, sister, hush,"> _ Sha're says softly. _< "Do not cry. Your paint will run and all our work will be spoiled before Oneer sees it. The future is sung to the wind; do not speak of what no one may know. Now you must go to your husband and bring honor to your father's house."> _

Father, sister, brother. A family she'll always be able claim. A husband, a child -- the family she'd never thought was possible. Sha're takes her hand and leads her out of the tent. Jack is outside -- pacing, impatient -- but he stops when she appears.

He looks appropriately stunned.

"Yeah, okay," he says after a long moment. "I'll just tell the General I got married while I was here. I'm sure he'll see reason about the goats."

"And when we bring the goats back, we can bring books, too," Dani says joyfully. "Books, and -- oh! I still know some people in Cairo. If I can find out what plants will grow in the Deep Desert, we could bring seeds, and tools, and--"

"And a miniature sleigh with eight tiny reindeer?" Jack asks, sounding amused. "Dani, you know I can't promise anything. I don't run Project Giza. I just work there, remember?"

"But you _will_ promise," she says determinedly. "Promise we'll come back here, and-- And-- And-- We _have_ to, Jack. We do!"

Jack shakes his head, smiling. "Well if we _have_ to, I guess it's my job to convince the General that you're right. If I said 'no,' you'd probably just build a Stargate in my basement, anyway."

"I could try," she says determinedly. A more practicable possibility strikes her. "Or maybe there's another one on Earth. I could find it, and--"

"And then I'd come after you. Come on, Dorothy. Your ruby slippers are waiting."

#

Processions are an element of nearly every wedding ceremony in every culture. Display the bride, display the groom. She and Jack -- and Charlie, Lou, Chris, Deke, Carl, and Gian -- are escorted to the Stargate by most of the population of Nagada. The Iunians carry torches. It's dark in the Stargate Chamber.

Dani steps up to the Dial Home Device. And finally it really is: she's leaving home, and going home. One, two, three, four, five, six -- the deep orange jewels on the outer ring of the Stargate glow brightly as the inner ring spins and locks -- seven ... and there's a fountain of light, then a shimmering mirror of blue. Jack holds out his arm to her, and there's nothing comical about the gesture; he's completely serious and as formal as if he's escorting her...

To her new home. 

She places her hand on his arm, and they walk forward. The others are right behind them.

_< "Live well, daughter, and bring honor to our house,"> _ Kasuf tells her.

_< "I will, Good Father. I will. I promise,"> _ she answers.

Up the steps.

Forward.

Into her future.

Jack is beside her.

###

**Author's Note:**

> This is many things, but most of all it's a re-do of Stargate The Movie as if it were done as a part of Stargate: SG-1*. Which means the characterizations, physical descriptions, locations, and mythos have all been skewed toward the TV show and basically ignore the stuff in the movie when it contradicts it.
> 
> It was sort of a challenge to sit down with the movie transcript -- and the movie -- and re-cast everybody in my head, to where I could actually SEE Richard Dean Anderson instead of Kurt Russell. This may count as one of the more extreme examples of self-hypnosis in my fannish career. It doesn't help particularly that I'm veering wildly from the movie plot, too. My basic jumping off point was: what if Catherine picked a different archaeologist for Project Giza?
> 
> And here we are.
> 
>  
> 
> *Except the part where Daniel's a girl. Sue me.


End file.
